


clip my wings and walk my miles

by capalxii



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Families of Choice, Hurt/Comfort, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Post-Canon, Reconciliation, Service Top, Shaving, Slow Burn, Some Humor, frienemies to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-26 17:51:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 50,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14407332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capalxii/pseuds/capalxii
Summary: Based on a prompt from Jexxer some years ago. Set post-series.





	1. London

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jexxer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jexxer/gifts).



> Title by Brandi Carlile. Beta work by Crystalsoulslayer. All errors are my own.

Julius had grown somewhat used to the slamming of doors, during his previous time knowing Malcolm. It was one reason out of many why he'd insisted on modern doors in his own home, technologically advanced but still classically beautiful things that whispered shut on some sort of hydraulic system, kept out of the line of sight.

Malcolm had had no knowledge of this system. Julius had, to be charitable, "forgotten" to tell him when he had first been bundled into Julius's home directly after prison. And so it was with an indulgent, patient, and certainly not secretly amused smile that he watched Malcolm glare helplessly at the door slowly closing behind him after his first tantrum in Julius's home.

"Will I see you for lunch?" Julius asked brightly as the door inched shut.

Confused and betrayed by the slow-moving inanimate object, Malcolm glanced at the door before glowering at Julius. "No."

"Tea, then?" he asked with a smile. "Or dinner?"

Malcolm continued to glower at him until the door sighed its final sigh and clicked shut between them.

*

Julius hadn't expected to be taking in strays, especially not this particular one. He had books to write. He had things to say, connections to refresh, people to help and/or use.

Julius was, as ever, a man on the move. Even in the midst of a not-so-self-imposed sabbatical from government life, during which, perhaps, things hadn't been moving quite as swiftly as he'd hoped.

But one dark and stormy night—truly, the clouds had been an angry purple bruise all day and had finally burst once the sun had hidden itself away—he had found himself answering a loud, insistent rapping at the door. (Julius, modern and progressive, answered his own doors, thank you very much. Or at least he did at this house. The family's ancestral home was a different matter entirely.)

There had stood one James MacDonald, face like a rabid cherub, hair curling from the damp and mouth twisting into a feral grin. "Fucking let us in or I'll hang your knob from my Christmas tree," he'd said.

"Good evening to you too," Julius had said in reply.

It had only been at that moment that he'd realized James had not been alone. There had been a shadowy streak behind him, wraith-like and exuding an air of sharp anger, and of course he'd heard a boom of thunder half a second after lightning had flashed blue and pale across Malcolm's form.

He'd been so terrified of that dead stare that he'd immediately stepped out of the way to let the two meanest men he'd ever known into his foyer. It had only been after they'd sat, hot drinks in hand, umbrellas dripping near the door and men slightly dripping by the fireplace, that Julius had recognized that anger as being born from something other than hatred. James had explained Malcolm needed somewhere to lay low, and his own flat was too small, too central and he was too known to the press as a former accomplice of Malcolm's, and as much as he would like to take Malcolm in he couldn't give him what he needed.

It hadn't been lost on Julius that Malcolm hadn't said a word of his own since arriving. And so with the rain beating a tattoo against his windows, and the fire warming the three of them tucked away inside, he'd looked at dear James and nodded, agreeing to let Malcolm stay.

The relief that had flashed across James's face had also not been lost on him, though it had disappeared rather quickly. "That all right, Malc?" he'd asked, and whatever relief James had masked from his face, could not have been masked in his voice.

Malcolm had spoken his first words that night, and they would be his last for days. "Fuck off."

*

James had left a suitcase and a satchel with Malcolm that night, and Julius had been tasked with uncomfortably leading him to the guest room. Malcolm had barely grunted his thanks before slowly closing his door. The next morning, Julius had awoken to that same shut door; by dinner, he had realized that Malcolm must have been sneaking down to the kitchen for stealth meals, deliberately avoiding his host and eating what seemed to be the bare minimum.

For two days, Julius lived with it. He had only just been released from prison, the man might have wanted some time alone after all. But early on the morning of the third day, he'd decided to try and pull Malcolm out of his shell, and had woken before the sun to catch him.

That was when the first fight had happened. To be honest, it hadn't been much of a fight; Julius had said, "Hello," and Malcolm had shouted something rageful but barely coherent, with a few fucks and cunts thrown in for good measure.

Breakfast had been an awkward affair. Silence, followed by the attempted door slamming, followed by Julius spending his day in the kitchen waiting for Malcolm to come back down. It never happened, so at some point after sunset, he made a plate of cheeses and bread, with some fresh fruit and a couple of biscuits beside, uncertain about what, exactly, Malcolm might want to eat. The children of his enemies, most likely, but Julius didn't have any of those in the pantry.

"I've brought you a light meal, Malcolm," he said through the closed door. "I'll leave it on the table in the hall. It's quite all right if you don't want to talk, but please do eat. I'm afraid of what your James would do to me if I allowed you to wither away."

He left just as he said, and was rewarded by the sound of a door opening behind him. Then, to his surprise, a tired sigh, and the words, "Thank you."

Julius turned back to him. Malcolm's hand was still gripping the doorknob, knuckles whiter than normal, long pale fingers curled around brass like his life depended upon it. His face was turned away as though he couldn't bring himself to meet Julius's eyes, or even look directly at him. "It's no problem, happy to help," Julius said.

Malcolm glared at him then, as though he'd said the wrong thing. Wordlessly he took his plate into his room and let the door close behind him.

*

It continued in this fashion for the remainder of the week. Awkward meals, silence punctuated either by cursing or muttered, grindingly hesitant apologies and thanks, and the pervasive feel of being haunted by a living creature. If Julius's writing hadn't already been stalled out before Malcolm had arrived, this would have thoroughly caused a block. Finally Julius thought to call James and ask his advice.

His sigh sounded like static over the phone, short and weighed down after Julius explained things. "He is eating, though, right?" he asked, sounding nearly desperate. "That's the main thing."

"Yes, of course," Julius said. He was more than a little confused at the question; he knew Malcolm was slim, that had always been readily obvious and a source of both silent fretting and embarrassed longing for him. But he'd figured Malcolm was simply the sort to look that way naturally. The idea that his physique was less an effect of genetics and more an effect of not getting enough food-

“Don't get any stupid tragic thoughts in your giant shiny head,” James said with a glower. Julius wasn't sure how he knew there had been a glower. He'd heard it somehow. “He just forgets when he's distracted. Remind him, throw something healthy at his face, just don't let him waste away because he's thinking of something else.”

“It's just,” Julius began, before turning towards the wall and letting his voice drop nearly to a whisper. “It's just the way you asked made it sound a bit more concerning than that.”

There was a very long pause before James muttered, “Aye. Look, just stuff some fruit in his gob every now and then.”

“Any fruit in particular?” Julius asked.

“Any of them that aren't you,” James said.

Julius huffed quietly and stood straight and stiff. “There's no need for that.”

“There's always a need for that.” Where he'd heard a glower before, now he heard a smile. “Seriously, just feed him and give him space. He'll want to escape, let him, but let him back in too.”

“Like a cat.”

“Like a cat, yeah.”

A kernel of a plan began to form in Julius's mind. “What if I took him out of the city? Enough room to roam without the possibility of running into anybody unsavory.”

“Hm.” There was a thoughtful silence this time, before James said, “Might be a good idea. The cunt-ry home?” There was no mistaking the pronunciation, though there was an edge of friendliness there as well. At least, Julius thought that was friendliness. He hoped it.

“You're welcome to join,” he said.

“Maybe. Let him have some time off first.”

“Hm,” Julius echoed. He wasn't sure why Malcolm needed time off from James in the first place, but decided it wasn't his place to pry. “I'll let you know the dates.”

*

He made something up about work needing to be done in the city home—very apologetic, couldn't be avoided, had to leave for at least a week. “At least,” he said, “there's the country home.”

Malcolm snorted, dropped his spoon back into his cereal, and sat back in his chair. “Fucking brilliant timing,” he said. “When are we leaving?”

“Tonight, if you can pack your things.”

Malcolm hadn't brought anything more than that suitcase and the beaten up satchel James had left with him, an old leather thing that Julius barely ever remembered seeing in the years they had worked together. It wouldn't take him long to gather his things, but there was a look of hesitance on his face. “How about the morning? Early?”

Julius shrugged, hoping that it looked accommodating. “If you like. Is there anything I can help with?”

Running a hand over his short-cropped hair, Malcolm frowned and said, “No. Just have some things to deal with.”

He nodded and went back to his toast. It was purely by accident, later that morning, that he found out exactly what Malcolm wanted to sort out, when he went to knock on the door and it eased slightly open.

Paper was strewn across the room Malcolm normally locked himself in. Everything else was neat, except for the medium sized sheets of what looked like newsprint, covered with an assembly of sketches and thickly dark drawings. Some were crumpled on the floor, some flat or barely folded over on the desk. Malcolm, in the midst of them, was looking down at them with a bleak expression. “I, uh, need to get some more paper,” he said; it might have been a trick of the light that made his hand look like it was shaking. “Nearly out. Was gonna call Jamie, see if he could pick up a couple more pads tonight.”

Julius bent to pick a sheet up, saw tension light up Malcolm's eyes, and stopped. “May I?”

“Yeah, it's fine,” Malcolm said. “It's just, I don't know, they said it was fucking therapeutic or something.”

The word “therapeutic” was not one Julius had ever imagined coming out of Malcolm's mouth, though the tone was unsurprising. He spat the word out as though it tasted off, a rancid little bit of gristle where each syllable deserved discrete expressions of disgust. Julius looked down at the drawing in his hand. It was nothing objectively fantastic, though he found himself impressed as it was better than anything he could draw; it was a still life, the vase and its flowers that sat on the dining room table.

But Malcolm didn't spend that much time in the dining room, and Julius would have recalled seeing charcoal and broad sheets of thin gray paper, so it had to have been sketched from memory.

He hesitated, recalling James's instruction to give Malcolm space as he digested this new piece of information. “There's a greenhouse,” he said, “at the country home. I'm not sure how the garden is doing this time of year, but the indoor plants—well, if you'd like something to draw, there's plenty.”

There was a look on Malcolm's face that Julius didn't want to interpret. It was fleeting, quickly replaced by a nearly professional blankness. “Good.”

“I can pick up some paper for you,” he said. “Do you need a particular brand?”

“Any cheap pads will be fine, long as they’re small enough to fit in the satchel.”

Something about those words left a mark in Julius’s mind, and it was only when he was standing in an art supply shop, staring with some minor confusion at the reams of different types of paper, that he realized what it was. But he brushed it aside after a moment’s thought; it had been a trick of something else, the air or ambient sound, that had made Julius hear that note of relief in Malcolm’s voice, nothing more.


	2. The Country Home

There was frost on the grass when they arrived at the estate. The old house was clean, stocked, and warm—Julius had had to call in favors to get it to a state of comfort so quickly, as it had stood unoccupied for some months with only the occasional cleaning to keep the dust from settling—but it was empty of life when he opened the door. He'd have to be somewhat more careful with Malcolm here; though the house was old, and though the doors hanged a little strangely and could both get stuck on the wood floors and creak open unintentionally upon occasion, these doors could shut very loudly and very quickly if someone were angry enough. He had more than enough memories from his youth to prove that out.

Malcolm stepped in right behind him, eyeing the foyer with some apprehension. “Of fucking course you have a mansion. How come I never knew about it?”

The idea of Malcolm, either this one or his former powerful self, not knowing about something so mundane startled him, in a proud sort of way. “It’s hardly a mansion, and I'd never wanted anybody to know,” Julius said.

“Can't be a man of the people when you have enough wealth to buy the people's village?”

Julius smiled tightly. “It's a little bit more complex than that.”

With a snort, Malcolm dropped his bag and took off his coat. The chill stayed outside, with the gloom of the fresh morning and the still quietness that came with it. “I'll bet,” he said. “As complex as the shine on your enormous skull.”

“That shine is very complex. I shave every day.”

He cast a very dubious look at Julius's scalp. “Really?”

Julius didn't say what, exactly, he shaved every day, and it wasn't his fault if Malcolm made assumptions. “Really.”

Malcolm kept frowning at his head, as though he expected hair to start growing spontaneously and only to spite him. “Fine. Where's my room?”

*

By lunch, Julius was alone.

Malcolm had wandered away, a series of doors opening and closing, the scuff of a jacket coming off a hook and a satchel shouldered against rough thick fabric the only things to alert Julius of this fact. The ensuing quiet in the home was a different one from his childhood; still heavy with some lingering emotion, but not ominous for it. Awkward, perhaps, but never ominous.

With nobody else in the house, he could have attempted to write. He decided to take his own walk instead. The grounds were large enough that he could go in whatever direction Malcolm hadn't gone and not see him until they both ended up back at the house, but small and clear enough that if he picked the same path as Malcolm, he'd know it within minutes.

And in minutes, he did know; in the distance, he saw a figure that could only be Malcolm, salt and pepper hair, pale skin, and a thick coat that made him look more substantial than Julius had ever known him to be. He hesitated, not wanting to interrupt, but curiosity won him over and he found himself drawn to Malcolm. His long legs made quick work of the downhill walk, the tall grass brushing against his calves and knees as he made his way to where Malcolm sat.

“Come to check on your prisoner?” Malcolm asked.

Julius sat beside him. “Does this look like a prison?”

The old satchel Malcolm carried was under his head as he lay back against the hill. His knees were drawn up just enough to brace the pad of paper on them, and the pad bore a rough but identifiable charcoal drawing of the trees and creek before them. Above them, the skies were a bright gray, cloudy but not overcast as sunlight managed to muscle its way through the thin cloud cover, and the air was crisp and sharp in the lungs. “No,” Malcolm said quietly. “How'd you know where to find me?”

Julius shrugged. “I didn't. It was luck.”

“Bad luck, on both our parts.” He turned his head, crooked back a bit, to look up at Julius. “I am sorry to impose.”

With a surprised frown, Julius shook his head. “It's no imposition. I'm just doing a favor.”

“Not one I'll be able to return, I don't think.” He sat up and gathered his things to leave. “Don't follow me, or use your luck to find me.”

Julius nodded and waited for Malcolm to depart, pulling his coat tighter against the cool air.

*

If he'd lunched alone, it seemed as though dinner would feel like he were eating in a complete void. There was no evidence anywhere in the house that another person was staying there, no noise from other rooms, no draft from doors being opened, no creaks beyond the house itself settling around him. The sun was nearly gone, the sky had turned a milky blue sort of color in the evening, and Julius peered out the dining room window for any sign of life beyond the heath.

A cold pit of worry was just starting to form in his chest as he thought about whether Malcolm had gotten hurt or lost, when he saw the man appear at the crest of the hill; barely a speck at first, growing larger and nearer each second. He was a good five to ten minutes away, but he was safe. With a sigh, Julius sat down and began to eat.

The door opened with a creak when he was halfway done. Dirt stomped out of shoes, a satchel falling to the floor with a soft thud, the strangely familiar shift and shuffle of a coat being taken off and hanged up briefly throwing him back thirty years or more. Malcolm walked into the dining room and stopped, staring. “Started without me?”

“Didn't know when you'd be back,” Julius lied, not bothering to look up. It wasn't quite rational, the aggravation he was feeling; Malcolm hadn't done anything particularly wrong, and it wasn't like Julius was owed the knowledge of his comings and goings. But he'd been worried, and once he'd seen he'd had nothing to worry about, that worry had changed to some kind of frustration.

Malcolm was smart enough to pick up on his tone of voice, but said nothing beyond, “Yeah, sorry. Mobile died on me.”

No fight, no harsh words. Not even a glare. This wasn't quite the Malcolm who Julius remembered. Most of the time, of course, he was there—sullen, quiet, withdrawn, but recognizably there—but the man hesitating over whether he should sit at the table or take his plate to his room seemed as far away from Malcolm as Julius had ever thought. “Sit down,” Julius said, finally, tired of watching Malcolm pretend to get up for some minor condiment as he privately debated whether to hide himself away.

Malcolm sat wordlessly and began to eat. “Did you have a good day?” he asked; the question sounded forced.

“Yes,” Julius said. He had, too, having caught up on both some reading and some writing. “And yourself? How was your walk?”

“Good,” Malcolm said. “Good.” Julius glanced quickly at him, trying not to look as though he were looking. He was eating some, but was pushing even more food around on his plate.

“Not hungry?”

The pushing stopped, Malcolm's jaw clenched tight enough that Julius could see a muscle jump in his cheek, and slowly, deliberately, he ate a forkful. “Happy?” he asked once his mouth was empty again, his voice dark and warning.

“Neither happy nor sad,” he said, pointedly ignoring that warning. “Simply wondering how long walks through the chilly heath could leave you with no appetite.”

“Found a kid along the way back,” Malcolm said. “Hope the mother doesn't mind.”

Julius somewhat primly cut into his own food. “No need to be so crass. Is dinner not to your liking? Would you have preferred it later in the evening?”

“I'd prefer it without so much chatting.”

“Then please feel free to take your meals privately. Nobody's stopping you.”

There was a pause where Julius refused to look up. Then, the sliding scrape of Malcolm's chair against the floor, the light clatter of cutlery being piled onto his plate, and the sound of him walking out of the dining room and down the hall.

He waited until he couldn't hear footsteps anymore, dropped his fork onto his plate, and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Brilliant, Julius,” he muttered. “Well played. You've sorted that one out tremendously.”

*

It took another day of listening intently for shutting doors and steps in the hallway before Julius decided to take further action.

“James, I'm in a bit of a bind,” he whispered into his phone. The grounds around the house were wide and vast enough that Malcolm could have been quite far away, yet he still felt the need to keep his voice down, just in case. “Do you think you could make the journey here? Perhaps he could do with another friendly face.”

There was the sound of a sigh, involuntary and short. “I don't think I'm exactly the sort of face he'd want around. Look, there's just a lot of—history, let's leave it at that. I won't come until he asks.”

Julius had known there had been some falling out, though the exact nature of it had been left to the rumor mill. From the sound of it, James seemed to think the rumors were better than coughing up some very personal truth, and Julius was not the type of man to push for anything even slightly looking like gossip unless there were professional reasons to be in the know. “All right,” he said. “It's only—I'm not sure if I'm being too distant. How much space does one man need?”

“When that man is Malcolm?” James snorted with mirthless laughter. “Fucking outer space is what he needs. The moon might be too close to people for his tastes.”

“Surely prison couldn't have been all that bad,” he said.

The pause on the line went on so long Julius nearly thought the call had been dropped. “Prison itself, no,” James said slowly. “I think this predates prison.”

In some other universe, some alternate Julius was pondering the idea of Malcolm's pet psychopath constructing a sentence that included the word “predates” but not some variant on the words “fuck” or “cunt.” This universe's Julius was more preoccupied with the insight that, perhaps, Malcolm's downfall may have been visible to others far earlier than it had been to him. “How much does it predate prison?”

“I don't know. Honest I don't. But I think a while.”

Julius took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. There was a note to James's voice that he didn't very much like. A note of guilt, or shame, or both. “And you won't come see him because-”

Another sigh. “I think I might have fucked off at exactly the wrong time, for all the wrong reasons. Just—keep me in the loop, yeah?”

“Of course,” he murmured. “Should I attempt to broach the subject of, er, you?”

“No,” James said quickly. “No, don't worry about it. Let him do what he needs.”

They said their goodbyes quietly and awkwardly. Julius wondered, privately, if letting Malcolm do just that was giving him more space than what was entirely healthy. But he had no other option before him; space, food, and strained conversation were all he could manage.

Unless, of course, he were willing to push a little.

The problem was Malcolm had no place to escape from Julius, and so a too-hard attempt to nudge the man into opening up could be—justifiably—seen as bullying. He'd have to be careful about it, if only so that he could keep his conscience clear. He'd have to be open about it as well. No subterfuge, no manipulation.

He'd have to be, in essence, his blue-sky self, rather than the malicious thing Malcolm had always suspected of and expected from others.

Square your shoulders, Nicholson, he thought to himself, and he set about finding the man who'd been haunting him lately.

*

In the end, he found Malcolm exactly where he should have looked first: the greenhouse. A few meters away from the main home, filled with plants still strong and beautiful under the old thick glass, the greenhouse was a spot of warmth and life on the otherwise autumn-grim estate. Malcolm had found a bench in it, and was absorbed by whatever he was sketching—something flowering, something Julius had never bothered to find out the name of—and didn't notice the door opening.

“You will dine with me,” Julius said.

Malcolm looked at him with a start, then, once his surprise wore off, a scowl. “Thought you said I could eat alone.”

Julius shrugged. “You still can. Just not here. There's an inn in the village, if you prefer to stay by yourself. If you choose to stay there, you're welcome to visit the grounds during the day but you'll need to leave by sundown.”

The look in Malcolm's eyes was almost enough to squelch Julius's resolve. “You're kicking me out?”

“No,” he said; he looked away from the confusion and anger scrawled across Malcolm's face, pretended he didn't see betrayal there as well as he focused on a spot over Malcolm's right shoulder. “Merely charging a fee. At the inn, you pay in pounds. Here, you pay in your presence in the dining room. Twice a day, breakfast and dinner.” He clasped his hands behind his back and took a step towards Malcolm. “As you were left in my care-”

Malcolm shot up hotly at that, sketch pad falling, instantly forgotten, to the ground. “I'm not in your care, you wanking-”

Steady, he thought to himself. This wasn't Whitehall. There was no weight to whatever Malcolm could threaten anymore. It didn't make the potential for threats any less frightening, though, and so Julius focused on ignoring his rising fear. “As you were left in my care,” Julius repeated, pointedly ignoring the finger jabbed in his face, pointedly staring Malcolm in the eyes, “it's my duty to make sure your basic needs while you stay with me are met.”

“Oh, so pudding and a handjob, is that it,” he said with a sneer.

Years ago, such a statement might have found Julius stuttering and red in the face, as he tried to keep his mind from wandering in the wrong direction. Now, he was on a mission, and he knew the snarl from Malcolm was toothless. “If you like. I haven't had a complaint yet about either,” Julius said with the most serene smile he could muster. It was enough to throw Malcolm off balance, enough to make him glance away uncomfortably. “Two meals, Malcolm. It's all I ask. It isn't much.”

“No. Of course.” Suitably chastened, then. He went back to his bench and gathered his materials. Julius spared the sketchpad a glance, saw what Malcolm had been spending his time on. “Let me know when.”

It was easier than Julius had anticipated, which should probably have been his first clue that something was wrong.

*

Breakfast, it seemed, would be a test of limits.

Eggs, fruit, toast, and a small selection of nut butters were laid out on the table, along with juice and coffee; for himself, he took a little bit of everything, but Malcolm-

Malcolm poured himself some coffee, finished it as quickly as he could manage, and left with barely a word.

To be fair to Malcolm, it hadn't been as though Julius had specified what he'd had to consume, and how long he'd need to spend at the table. An oversight on his part. Julius worked through his breakfast efficiently and with little appetite for it, fuming quietly that he had left a loophole for Malcolm to wriggle through.

Dinner was a similar test, barely a few bites of food before Malcolm rushed off again. Like a teenager who didn't want to spend time with his family, Julius thought. But it wasn't the lack of companionship that worried him—though he did notice it, and he did wonder if it would become a problem later on—rather, it was the fact that he hadn't seen Malcolm take anything else to eat throughout the day.

And so the next day at breakfast, while Malcolm was attempting to drink his scalding hot coffee as fast as he could, Julius stood, walked over to him, and methodically began placing food on his plate. Brave heart, he thought to himself. The worst Malcolm could do was commit murder for the affront to his dignity, and Julius figured he wouldn't be around long enough to be bothered by that. “Addendum to our agreement,” he murmured. “Do you like eggs?”

Malcolm remained silent for a moment. “Not really.”

“Toast and fruit, then,” Julius said. “Jam?”

Malcolm was glaring at him, so Julius glared back, standing over him and forcing himself not to flinch or move back. It was still terrifying, but the man was like a muzzled dog—there was danger, of course, but it was suitably restrained. Limited by outside forces. “No jam,” Malcolm said, his voice low with warning.

“Fine,” said Julius, trying his best to keep his tone light. “Go on, eat.”

“With you hovering?” Malcolm spat. “Should've known you'd have some kind of feeder kink.”

“Crass language will not move me, you can eat or you can take yourself to the inn,” Julius said.

For a moment, he worried that Malcolm would simply go and pack his bags. But the man swallowed, eyes downcast, and began to pick at his meal. Wary but satisfied, Julius went back to his own breakfast, eyeing Malcolm every now and then to make sure that he wasn't planning on running off without finishing.

When the last bit of toast was gone and the last piece of fruit on his plate speared, Julius asked, “Was that so bad?”

There was anger in his eyes, a touch of humiliation that Julius felt badly about but that he told himself was a necessary byproduct. And there was something else, conflict or confusion, that he couldn't place. “Why does it matter?”

He shrugged and sat back. “Against my better judgment,” he said, “I care.”

Everything but anger burned away as Malcolm dropped his fork to his place. “Well nobody fucking asked you to, son.”

There was the old Malcolm, the one he knew before, the one he'd always known better than to cross. This Malcolm looked at him as though he were calculating exactly how to draw and quarter Julius, how to dismantle him publicly without showing his face or giving up his fingerprints. It took all his willpower to stare right back, to keep his expression serene and his breathing steady. His voice calm and slow, he said, “You have another option, if you don't like it here.”

Nostrils flaring, Malcolm stood, his chair screeching from the quick movement; his jaw was clenched as though he were keeping a tirade at bay, his fists tight and his eyes hard and piercing. But he turned and left without another word, stalking away and slamming doors shut in his wake.

*

“I'll figure it out,” Malcolm said.

Fleetingly, Julius thought to himself that he would never have agreed to take Malcolm in if he'd known this was what would happen. Very fleetingly. Just as quickly, however, came a wave of guilt—here was a man who had needed a place to recover, and Julius would have been completely monstrous had he turned him away.

That didn't mean he wasn't frustrated over what their interactions had become.

“Figure what out?” he asked tiredly.

Malcolm was idly tearing apart some bread, dipping the pieces into the pan sauce on his plate. “What you're getting out of this.”

Julius stifled a sigh and began to eat his own dinner. “I've already told you.”

“Yeah. I'm in your care. You're doing all this out of the goodness of your blue-blood heart.”

“Would it be easier to think I've got some grand scheme in mind instead?” Julius asked. “What would that scheme be, exactly? What advantage does my association with you give?”

“Nothing,” Malcolm said, “and that's what's stumping me.” He peered across the table, dropped his bread in the remnants of his dinner, and snarled, “But I will find out. Whatever it is you and Jamie have come up with.”

Spearing a piece of broccoli, Julius asked, “Are you prepared to find out we've come up with nothing? That it truly is what it seems, and we're only giving you a place to stay until the news cycle shifts away from you?”

“The cycle's already shifted.” He put his napkin on the table and made to leave. “Was never in the cycle to begin with.”

“Then go home. If you want, that is.”

It was a risk, telling him that. Julius had never really known Malcolm; or, rather, he'd known him only just well enough to know that he would never be able to predict his next move. Malcolm moved through life like it was a game of chess, always thinking five steps ahead if not more, making his immediate next step both difficult to call and instantaneously suspicious as a general rule. He could, Julius thought, pack his things and be back in London by the next day. He didn't think Malcolm had amassed much in his short time at the country home, perhaps some new drawings but nothing that would be difficult to move.

Malcolm looked at him under furrowed brows, his lips pursed and his eyes hard. Then he looked away, as though he couldn't keep his eyes on Julius. “No,” he said quietly. “Want to see how this plays out.”

“And how do you think it'll play out?”

“Not sure. Not well for you, that much I know. Not well for him.”

“And Samantha?” he asked.

Malcolm's eyebrows shot up, his gaze locked with Julius. “Sam? She's got nothing to do with this.”

He leaned back, unable to fully hide his gloating; here was a thread to the story that Malcolm hadn't considered. Here was something he could dangle over the man, tease him with if he felt like it. “Per your James, she's the one who recommended he take you to me in the first place,” he said.

This was, as far as Julius knew, a statement pulled from thin air. But it was a statement which could be true, given the right set of variables, the right circumstances and chain of events. He would put money on the idea that Sam knew exactly where Malcolm was at the moment, and that she'd conferred with James about how best to keep Malcolm safe upon his prison release.

And he knew that Malcolm was falling for its believability as well, even if he had no way of proving it or disproving it at the moment.

Fingers drumming lightly but fast-paced on the tabletop, Malcolm nodded curtly and frowned. “Right,” he said. “Right. Why would she—never mind. You've tricked her into—except she wouldn't be tricked, she's too sharp-”

“Malcolm,” Julius said, softly but firmly. There was something strange about seeing the wheels turning in Malcolm's head like this, unsettling and only barely familiar. He almost wanted to say, once more, that there was no trickery involved, and that Malcolm's presence here was entirely due to a sense of care. But Malcolm was in no place to accept those words, and they might, Julius thought, send him further down this disturbing path. So instead, he said, “Please go to the sitting room and wait for me. I'll only be a few moments—I'll need to clean up in here. There are plenty of books if you'd like to read.”

He glared at Julius, wary. “Why? Why wait for you, I mean?”

Julius smiled as pleasantly as he could. “I'll be making a pot of tea.”

Malcolm regarded him suspiciously, as though he were trying to read his mind but failing. “Don't piss in it,” he said.

“No pissy tea,” said Julius. “Noted.”

*

A quick text was sent to James—”Pls inform Sam: my supporting Malcolm was her idea”—as soon as he knew Malcolm was out of sight. The next three notification pings sounded so angry that he somehow knew it must have been James responding; as soon as the kettle was set on the stove, he pulled his mobile out and put it on silent. He didn't bother to glance at the texts, other than to ensure they were nothing more than frothing and violent verbal attacks against his intellect and heritage.

When he brought the tea into the sitting room, he was surprised to find Malcolm in front of the fireplace, trying to get something going. “Hope you've had your chimney cleaned recently,” he said. He glanced behind his shoulder. “That's not a euphemism.”

“We'll be fine,” Julius said. Tray on the table, he asked, “Do you need any help?”

“Still remember everything from my arsonist days, I think I have it.” True to his word, he had a small flame going moments later. It grew quickly enough, and soon the room was lit with a warm glow, yellows and oranges flickering over the furniture and over Malcolm's skin. That skin picked up everything, Julius noticed, as pale as he was. When he moved back to the sofa, the light seemed to reach for him, racing against his own movements in order to remain in contact with his features and form; Malcolm settled against the cushions as though the effort to outrun the firelight were too much, and the shadows under his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks gave the appearance of a hunted, guarded and ragged man.

He hadn't asked Malcolm to start the fire. He'd assumed Malcolm wouldn't have wanted to do anything that would prolong their time together. He wondered how cold he must have been to have willingly gotten the fire going like this, how exhausted he must have been to not only refuse to fight but to make an effort to accommodate Julius's press for company, but he didn't want to risk asking. With a sigh, he sat back in his armchair, brought his cup to his mouth and took a sip. “What did you manage to do today?”

“Me? What did you?” Malcolm asked quietly. “Find a stable boy with a particular set of needs?”

“You're the one who's been out walking the estate, not me,” Julius said. “If anyone's out finding stable boys-”

“I don't want to-” He cut himself off, jaw clenched, hand rubbing at his knee absently. Swallowing, he said quietly, “I just drew. Same as always.”

Was this, Julius asked himself, an improvement from their previous encounters? It was awkward, yes, but for the moment he was more than willing to keep hold of it, hoping it was a sign of greater openness between them. “Have you had a chance to see much of the village?”

Malcolm licked his lips, bit the lower one. He wasn't really meeting Julius's eyes, wasn't really even looking in his direction. Julius had seen him like this only once before, years ago, when he'd been made to witness the news of his own resignation, a power play that had backfired spectacularly on Julius later on. There was a sense of helplessness, of having been cornered with no obvious escape route, then and now.

He had no choice, really, except to engage in conversation with Julius if he wanted to stay. This wouldn't have been that bad, except Julius was beginning to understand—no matter how many times he'd mentioned that Malcolm could leave, he'd refused. Something about the idea of being truly alone was making him hesitate; Julius's presence may not have been always welcome, but his total absence, and the absence of others in Malcolm's life, seemed to be a far worse possibility, and one that Malcolm was seeking to avoid at all costs.

Then it wasn't an improvement at all. As he realized this, Julius felt like a bully; the awkwardness suddenly made sense, the conversation seemed force because it was, it was all a bid to keep someone in his life for just a little longer. He wished to do nothing else but take Malcolm's hands in his and beg forgiveness for his actions. To touch him once, before giving him the freedom he'd cruelly taken away.

But before he could apologize and give Malcolm his space, the man shook his head, apparently intent on continuing the conversation. “I haven't yet,” Malcolm said, “though I think I'd like to.”

Malcolm's willingness to keep going was nearly enough for Julius to forgive himself, so long as he were willing to make amends. He decided to move things along as quickly as possible; he'd been too hasty in trying to coax companionship from Malcolm, perhaps he was owed a few more days' respite from Julius and the rest of the world. “Next Tuesday might be a good option, there's always a market on Tuesdays,” Julius said. He sipped his tea and motioned to Malcolm's cup. “Drink up, before it gets cold.”

He reached for the cup, hesitated, brought his hand back to his knee. In the glow of the fire, Julius thought he might be able to see right through Malcolm's skin, right into his inner self; he was tense, his mind worrying at some triviality, perhaps a minor statement that Julius had already forgotten making. Still, when he bit out the words, “Would you just tell me?” his apparent anxiety came as a surprise.

Julius leaned forward, his own tea nearly forgotten. “Tell you what?”

“What you're doing this for,” Malcolm said. He still couldn't meet Julius's eyes, but Julius could at least see his, could see how shifty they were and how he kept glancing around as if he were trying to find a way out. “What do I provide you? What do you expect me to-”

Julius put his cup down, leaning forward to reach Malcolm's arm. That single touch was enough to interrupt him and stop him from speaking, and briefly, he wondered how much he should answer. “As I've stated before,” he said quietly, “nothing. I expect you to do nothing for me. To be honest, I, perhaps, have been pushing too hard telling you to leave if you don't want to take meals with me, and for that I am sorry.”

Malcolm's eyes flickered across his face at that, and he gave a brief, barely verbal acceptance of the apology before he said, “I still don't understand.”

With a tight smile that could have been mistaken for a grimace, Julius said, “I only wish to help you have some time for yourself; this is done solely out of friendship.”

“We've never been friends.”

It shouldn't have stung—it wasn't wrong—but Julius felt a pang in his chest anyway. He ignored it, as it was hardly Malcolm's fault that he felt such a thing, and focused on what needed to be done instead. “We could be now. We were allies, once.” He stood; his tea was neither cold nor finished, but he had no taste for it anymore. Hesitantly, as he passed behind Malcolm on his way out, he reached down to squeeze his shoulder. “Give it some thought. We'll continue our meals together, if only because I do worry that you'd simply forget to eat otherwise.”

He didn't cringe or move away from Julius's hand, but neither did he acknowledge the touch. “Is that what Jamie told you?”

“It is,” Julius admitted.

Malcolm nodded. “Sometimes-” He cut himself off, leaned forward with his head in his hands.

He stood awkwardly behind Malcolm, watching the tension in the curve of his shoulders and back, wanting desperately, irrationally, to put his hands on him and fold his slim form into his arms. But this was Malcolm, and they weren't friends, and even if they were it wouldn't have been that kind of friendship. He thought, as fast as he could, about what Malcolm might ask of a friend in this scenario. “Would you, er, like me to fuck off?”

“Could you?” he asked. His voice was rougher suddenly, and though he tilted his head up slightly, he was still leaning forward and curled into himself, making himself smaller as he sat on Julius's sofa.

Julius waited, patiently but with a concern that grew with each passing fraction of a second, for at least some venom from the man. But none came, and Julius found himself uncomfortable with the lack of insults, so he asked, “Perhaps I could shove my head into some kind of farm equipment, in the hopes of giving it a certain unique patina?”

“Yeah,” Malcolm said quietly. “I'll be fine, just need-”

“Of course,” he said quickly. Only at the door did he turn back to add, “If you require anything in the night, please just let me know.”

“Might take you up on that pudding and a handjob,” he joked weakly.

For one baffling moment, Julius failed to recall their earlier meeting in the greenhouse. The sneering remark, Malcolm's defensive attempt to make Julius uneasy, and his own unwillingness to show that unease—he'd forgotten about it, in spite of the event only having happened a few days prior. But when he recalled it, he gave a brief huff of laughter, relieved though something small fell cold in his chest. “As I said then, no complaints about either.”

There was silence from the figure still seated by the fire; Julius closed the door quietly behind him.

*

In the privacy of his own room, he could respond to James's texts. Even if Malcolm were standing at the door, Julius had retreated to his en suite, testing and retesting both doors along the way to ensure they remained shut, and there was no way Malcolm could hear his conversation at this point. “I needed to prove to him it wasn't some kind of ploy,” he said.

On the other end of the phone, James let out a sharp laugh. “Good luck with that, considering it was a ploy. To get him out of the city and away from all the shit that ate him up before.”

“Yes, well,” Julius said with a huff. “You know what I mean. He thought we were playing at something, trying to get something out of him. So you'll just need to call Samantha-”

“No, you can call her,” James said. His tone brooked no argument, though Julius had no idea why. “I'll text you her number.”

“Why can't you-” He pinched the bridge of his nose as he recalled just how inseparable Malcolm and Sam had been; before his prison sentence, wherever he went, so did she, both physically and metaphorically. “Is she angry with you, too?”

“...Mebbe.”

“Is it because of how you left?”

“Will you call her?”

Julius sighed and stared blankly at the wall. He wanted to find out what, exactly, had happened between James and Malcolm all those years ago that had made Samantha of all people turn on him, but that was an investigation for another day. A day where he wasn't already exhausted and kicking himself for potentially mishandling the care and feeding of one Malcolm Tucker by rewriting the rules one too many times, and pushing the other man to a point of discomfort he hadn't been ready to handle. “I'll call her,” he said. “First thing in the morning, before Malcolm's woken up.”

“Might be better to do it now,” James said, “before he's had a chance to call her himself.”

It was a fair suggestion. Malcolm had a decent shot of figuring out, sooner rather than later, that Julius had lied to him, and he feared that would be exactly the thing to drive Malcolm out. And this was not a man who needed fewer connections, or who needed to cut himself off; if anything, Julius thought, he needed more, in ways that had nothing to do with his former life.

But he wouldn't ask more of Malcolm than he'd already asked. It was clear that what Julius was already asking of him was taking its toll; it might have been necessary, to make sure that Malcolm didn't retreat completely within himself and to make sure that he was getting some structure, companionship and nutrition throughout the day, but Julius was wary of asking him to be sociable with more people.

It was bad enough he had to be sociable with someone he didn't even consider a friend. His next steps seemed clear to him now, even though he knew that next step would not be taken for some time.

“Is there anyone,” Julius asked, “who he might like to see? When I talk to Samantha I might ask her to come up, but is there a family member or—some lady of his acquaintance who might have missed him?”

James laughed as though the sound had been wrenched out of him. “Ah, no. No, there wouldn't be. And I don't think his sister is around, either, last I heard she was still in Canada.”

With a frown, Julius hesitantly asked, “A gentleman of his acquaintance, then?”

At that, James stayed quiet for a moment. “No. Don't think there's one of those either.”

It was a missed opportunity to tease and taunt Julius; then it struck him that it might not have been missed as much as it may have been deliberately avoided. “I'd always heard he was quite the womanizer,” he said.

“You never thought you might have heard exactly what he wanted everyone to hear? The idea of shagging a different broad each week was mundane enough to keep him from getting long-lensed, that's all.”

“Surely he didn't think the party would punish him for-”

“Wasn't about punishment or hiding anything, was about—look, it's not what you think. It's really, really not. Forget about it, and just call Sam before it gets too late.”

Julius had the chance to murmur half a goodbye before James disconnected. A moment later, James's text came through—Sam's number, innocent as a number could be. With only the slightest hesitance, he dialed it and waited in awkward silence for her to pick up.

“Hello?”

She sounded groggy. Julius cringed. He must have woken her, and now he was unsure how to proceed. Stiff and stately or casual and friendly, he-

“If you're some sort of pervert, could you at least do me the favor of letting me know? Put some effort into it, for God's sake. Not even a bit of heavy breathing, can you imagine-”

“I'm Julius,” he sputtered out. “Er. That is. This is, ah, Julius Nicholson. I've got. James MacDonald gave me Malcolm.” He cringed some more.

There was a long-ish pause on the end of the line. “Oh,” Sam said, finally; the word came out like her breath had been knocked out of her. “Is he all right?”

“He's good,” he said. “The reason I called is I might have told him that his being here was your idea.”

“I did mention your name to Jamie as a potential safe house,” she said slowly, “but that was it.” There was the sound of a body shifting against sheets, and Julius cringed once more. No doubt he'd woken her up. She asked, “Was there a particular reason you told him that?”

“He was starting to think—ah, well,” he said. “It was to head off an argument.”

She sighed and said, “That's fair. I can play along if you need me to.”

“Yes, I was thinking we should get our stories straight,” he said. “Though it sounds more like we'd only have to stretch the real truth rather than fabricate a new truth out of whole cloth.”

“Mm. Agreed. Just one thing,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Do you think he'd like visitors anytime soon?”

He wished he could give her an answer straight away; his previous thought of asking her to come warred with the idea that Malcolm might not want the intrusion, and in the end he decided it wasn't his place to say yes or no. So instead he said, “I'm not sure. Perhaps you could call him tomorrow, or—email, that might be better. Let him respond in his own time.”

There was no way to know what her face looked like on the other end of the line; he imagined it anyway. She had always been so strong and vibrant in the office, but he recalled the day Malcolm had resigned—had been forced to resign, partially due to his own machinations—and the way he had found her in tears, crying while Malcolm had tried to protect her. Julius did not think for one moment that she was as crushed now as she had been then, but his mind's eye could put together a quietly fallen look, the image of a woman accepting a certain inevitable sadness yet still somehow surprised as her hopes are gently pulled away from her hands.

“I'll email,” she finally said. “Three days from now. If I send a note tomorrow, he'll know we've talked, or at least he'll suspect. But thank you for calling, it's good to hear how he's doing.”

“Of course,” he said. She murmured a goodbye and so did he; it felt a bit odd, this subterfuge, talking around Malcolm without talking to him. Strangely like their days together years ago, but as though they were in an alternate universe. Instead of working out plots against each other like games of chess, they were all working in tandem, the common goal being Malcolm himself.

It was exhausting, frankly, without even the glimmer of fun from before, without the edge of competitiveness and oneupmanship to counter the more serious aspects of all this. With a sigh, he put his mobile to charge and readied himself for bed. He was suddenly very tired, and hoped a good night's sleep would be enough for him to face the next day.


	3. An Early Thaw

Julius woke to the sound of a knock, then a muffled, “If I open the door, you'll be decent, right? No chance of you taking my eye out with an errant shot of Nicholson-batter?”

He cringed, groaned quietly, and blearily reached for his glasses. “It's fine,” he said, his voice rough from sleep. “Come in.”

Malcolm opened the door and stepped over the threshold. Julius very nearly wanted to say he'd stepped hesitantly, but he'd been fumbling with his glasses and wasn't sure he believed his eyes. When he finally did get a clear view, he was surprised by what he saw: Malcolm fully dressed and ready for an apparent day out, in a fleece pullover and jeans that he estimated had only been worn perhaps once in the past five years, given how crisp yet ill-fitting they looked.

“Was thinking,” Malcolm said, “we could go out for breakfast. I know you've been cooking everything since we got here, why don't you take a break from it today?”

Julius blinked owlishly. It was a concession, he realized through the fog of sleep. One from a man who had been, in his own way, already conceding and holding his tongue the entire time he had been with Julius, in spite of his natural leanings towards isolation and wariness.

And it was a concession Malcolm seemed mildly uncomfortable making; while he stood in Julius's doorway, he was tapping a finger against the jamb, glancing about the room, shifting from foot to foot as though he were making escape plans. Stifling a sigh, Julius sat up against the headboard, pulled his legs towards him and rested his forearms on his knees. “If you truly want to, then of course,” he began slowly, “but please don't feel the need to offer it on my account. I enjoy my time in the kitchen.” A concession for a concession.

At that, Malcolm rolled his eyes, and his mouth twisted into a snarl. “I'm trying to play nice, of course I don't want to do it, you egg faced shite. But I can't imagine a social butterfly like you enjoys being cooped up in here. Stop looking this gift horse in the arse and come out with me.” He stomped away, a brief vision of the human hurricane he once was, annoyance and mild disgust radiating in his wake.

God help him, but Julius felt the slightest bit of hope, and, though he’d never admit it out loud, butterflies in his stomach as a result. Throwing off his sheets, he practically skipped out of bed and began preparing for the day.

*

Breakfast was a filling affair at the local inn. Thick toasted brown bread for the table, crisp on the outside but still soft on the inside, smothered in fresh butter for himself and jam for his companion. Piles of eggs and sausage on his own plate, a piping hot bowl of porridge beside a plate of fruit in front of Malcolm. Tea, milky and sweeter than he'd ever admit to liking.

They sat in a booth at the back of the room, and the pale light of the early morning barely touched them. In the half-shadow, Malcolm tore a piece of bread and asked, “Do you come out here often?”

“Not as often as I like,” he said. He chewed slowly and regarded the man before him. He was still uncomfortable, very obviously using his food as a distraction as much as he was attempting to finish as quickly as possible. “Do you really want to make small talk?”

“I want-” Jaw clenched, eyes downcast, bread squeezed a little too tightly between his fingers. “I want to repay your kindness.”

Something withered inside of him, fueled by his recognition the previous night, and his recollection of the previous few days. “Then allow me to confess something,” he said. “I don't think I've been as kind as I could have been. I'm sorry. I've-” He smiled tightly, polishing his expression. “What I said last night still stands true this morning. I've pushed too hard, I think. And not been as accommodating of your needs as I could have been.”

Malcolm's jaw was still clenched, his eyes were still focused on the wood tabletop, but his hands lost tension and he nodded in acknowledgment. “It's fine.”

“It's not, and it could have been avoided with some conversation,” Julius said. “Or at least, if you don't want a conversation, then some explaining on my part and listening on yours. Is that all right?”

“Yeah,” Malcolm said quietly.

He settled forward, elbows just barely off the edge of the table. “I worry. I'm a fixer, I always have been,” he said. “I...do not want to overstep my bounds, but I also have a driving need to ensure those around me are taken care of. You understand?”

“You don't need to take care of me,” he muttered. “Been caring for myself fifty years now.”

His mouth pressed into a thin smile, and he stopped himself from trying to calculate the math of that statement. “Nonetheless, needing someone and having someone are two different things. I simply want to make sure that when you do return home, you're not-” He waved his hand vaguely at the food before them. “Malnourished. Either in body or soul. And that should have been explained by me, not enforced with threats. I am hoping that, in spite of my boorish behavior, you're willing to continue indulging me. You still have enough supplies?”

Malcolm looked at him, finally, somewhat bewildered at the question. “Yeah, I've got enough.”

“Only because there's no art supply store in the village, and so I'd send someone out to fetch more if you were running low.”

Hesitating, Malcolm shrugged and slumped back in his seat, clearly debating whether or not he wanted to be the sort of person who sent others to fetch hobby supplies for him. “No, I think it'll last til we get back to London. I assume the work being done on your house there is completely fictional, yeah?”

Julius cringed, though he'd had no reason to think Malcolm would have fallen for the ruse for much longer. “Yes. But do you really want to return yet?”

Malcolm glanced around the inn's dining room. It was cozy, but quiet, with far fewer people than what it would see during the high season. And while the handful of people there knew Julius—some since his childhood, though they'd so far left the two of them alone—none of them knew Malcolm.

He shook his head, idly picking apart the bit of bread in his hands. “No,” he said, so quietly that Julius struggled to hear it.

“If you do wish to go,” he said, “tell me, and I'll go with you. No reason for the journey to be a lonesome one.”

“Still don't understand what you get out of all this,” Malcolm said.

To be honest, Julius was beginning to think he shouldn't examine that too much. So he smiled, leaned back, and said, “Simply the joy that comes with being in the service of another.”

Malcolm peered at him across the table.

“Don't say it.”

“Wasn't gonna say anything. Only, if you're hoping I put you in cuffs and a gimp mask-”

“There it is.”

“Just not what I call a nice night in, that's all. Could pass on a few names though.”

“Thank you. I'm suitably scarred that you even have contacts in that realm.”

“Anything to repay you for all this.”

He laughed quietly, and Malcolm grinned at him. A genuine smile on his face: something Julius could not recall ever seeing. Even at the height of his power, there had been something cold behind his eyes when he smiled, something calculating yet uncertain. Perhaps even especially at the height of it. “Then I appreciate the offer, but I must pass,” he said.

Malcolm raised his eyebrows, as though shrugging without actually doing so, popped a piece of bread in his mouth and said, “Your loss. I've got quite a list, could make you very happy.”

Something clicked inside of Julius as he heard that. Some part of his reptilian brain lit up, nudging him towards an edge that he was thrilled to consider jumping off, and without thought he said, “If you'd like to make me happy, then we should come back here for dinner. Tonight, if you're willing. If you're not, it's no problem, but if you are...”

His eyebrows shot up again, this time in surprise. “Thought you liked the kitchen.”

Julius liked conversation more, and this was the first time he had felt like they had truly had one. “Call it an engagement in neutral territory,” he said. And it was; the inn was not his space, did not give him any real privilege over Malcolm either real or imagined.

Malcolm seemed to understand. The smile faded from his face as he nodded, but he didn't look tense about it. “Fine, yeah. Just let me know the time and I'll be here.”

*

Seeing Malcolm walk back to the house without him would have, even a day previously, left him with a slight murmuring of anxiety and dread in the back of his mind. Today, he felt light, leaving Malcolm to his own devices knowing that they'd parted well and had plans for later that evening. It was with that newfound sense of weightlessness that Julius decided to take a stroll around the village.

It was the same place that he had known as a child, for all intents and purposes. The houses had been standing there for ages, some of the trees at least as old as his family's presence in the region, and it felt like a place where little really ever changed. Of course appearances were deceiving; the inn had possibly better wi-fi than Whitehall could ever hope to have, and there were a few unrecognizable faces as he walked around town—not to mention the fact that the national chains were beginning to creep into the outskirts.

Guiltily, he stepped into a cafe and quietly ordered the same coffee he ordered at any of a dozen or so cloned locations in London. He couldn't help enjoying their particular blend as much as he did.

“Don't think I don't see you sneaking about with that hot cup of shite, Jules.”

That voice—he wanted to cringe at being caught, but he couldn't help but smile instead. He'd only gotten two steps away from the offending cafe when Mrs. Trumbull caught him, and he turned around with a sheepish look on his face. “Please don't call me Jules,” he said, even as he enveloped her in a warm hug.

“I will call you what I've been calling you for as long as I've been calling you anything at all,” she said. Her bright, pale face creased into a grin as she stepped back and looked at him. “I didn't know you were back.”

“I came up rather quietly,” he said. “Helping a friend take a break.” He awkwardly held the cup of coffee up to her. “Er, may I buy you-”

“You won't buy me any of that,” she said scornfully. “If it's not done by the time we make it home, you're pouring it down the sink.”

“Home?”

Mrs. Trumbull linked one arm with his, her other arm busy with her cane. “Yes, home. Where you'll be walking me.”

“Of course, Mrs. Trumbull.”

Home was not too far, just up the hill, and Mrs. Trumbull was perfectly capable of a fast pace as long as she had her cane. Julius idly imagined that the cane was as much to chase away the occasional stray cat or child as it was to help her walk; she had never suffered fools or mess, and so why she suffered him for all these years had always been beyond him. They'd only had a few minutes to catch up on the state of the village, her garden, and what she thought of his career, before they were at her door. “You'll come in,” she said. It wasn't a question.

Julius nodded obediently and held the door for her. For the life of him, he couldn't recall how she had ever come into his life. He only knew she had always been there, with her small quiet cottage, the constant aroma of a good meal, and, for many years, Mr. Trumbull working silently in the shed or garden, tolerating Julius's presence with the occasional nod in greeting and always looking at him with kind eyes. “Suppose I'll have to discard this,” he said of his coffee.

“Down the drain immediately,” she said, “and I'll fix you something proper instead.”

He didn't complain. “Proper” brought back memories, good ones even, and once the coffee was gone he sat at her kitchen table and watched her. She wouldn't want his help, he knew that much from many, many attempts in the past. “How have you been, Mrs. Trumbull?”

“I'm alive, which is fair enough,” she said as she worked. “Tell me about this friend who needs help taking a break.”

“A former co-worker, really, more than a friend-” He stopped speaking as she turned back to him with a sharp look in her eyes.

“Not one of those terrible sorts you deal with? You brought one of them here?”

He sighed. There was no getting around what she thought of politicians. “One of the worst,” he admitted. “Or, he used to be. Not really in any kind of position to do any damage now.”

“That makes him even more dangerous, you know. Cornered animals are the meanest.”

Julius bit back anything he might have said to that. If he were being honest, he had to admit that she had a point, and it explained the earlier tension between himself and Malcolm well. “That's...one reason I'm giving him room to breathe. And one reason he's here, not London.”

Her critical eye turned curious. “You think you can domesticate him?”

“He's not a wild animal, he's—I think I can be a friend, that's all.”

The kettle began whistling, and the conversation broke as she went about making tea. When she came back to the table to pour him a cup, she said quietly, “You cannot fix everything and everybody, Jules.”

He ducked his head, embarrassed to be seen so easily, even by someone who had always been able to see him. He knew that. Of all people, he knew that. But he had his proof that he was right, today. “He wants to change, I think. Not to be fixed, but—to alter himself, somehow.”

“Well,” she conceded, “that's different, then.” She sat across from him, offered him a biscuit. “What was he before?”

What they all were, out of necessity, he thought. Except taken to new heights, with no off switch. “Guarded,” he said carefully.

“Paranoid,” she translated.

He bit his lip. “Passionate for his work.”

“Bit of a backstabber, then?”

“So am I,” he said. She scowled, scoffed, and sipped her tea. It wasn't something she liked hearing from him, but it was something she knew, and one of the reasons she so hated what he did for a living.

“Do you see your future in his past, then?” she asked.

Never, he thought immediately, though he couldn't pinpoint why. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I'm not sure that's possible. Malcolm was always on a different level than most.”

“Malcolm?” She peered at him suspiciously. “...You brought the one from prison?” For a moment, he thought she looked like she wanted to smack him. But her face softened almost deliberately, and she asked, “Jules, are you absolutely sure about this one?”

After a moment he said, “No. But I would like to take the chance.”

*

Dinner had been everything Julius had hoped for. The inn didn't cater very much to metropolitan tastes, which Julius always enjoyed in a certain way, but he had watched Malcolm delight over his meal of roasted brussell sprouts, parsnips and asparagus along with the hearty bean soup and fresh bread that had been placed before him. The simplest things had brought a light to him that Julius found difficult to look away from, and when he had sat back with a sigh, content and full with his eyes heavy-lidded, Julius had had to take interest in the designs the gravy had made on his own plate in order to avoid staring.

“No room for pudding,” Malcolm said, “but don't let me stop you if you want something.”

“Believe I'm in the same boat,” Julius said with mock grimness. “The walk back to the house might do us both very good.”

The night air had turned chilly, chillier than either of them had been prepared for after spending so many nights indoors, and they hurried back. Almost instinctively they walked close to each other, jackets brushing together as they tried to find some warmth along the way. “Maybe just breakfast and lunch from here out,” Malcolm said through chattering teeth.

“Agreed,” Julius said. He pulled his keys out with some difficulty, fumbling as his fingers grew colder. After what felt like an eternity, they made it inside the house. “Could you please use your arsonist skills again tonight?”

“Needn't even fucking ask, I'm on it.”

As Malcolm worked on the fire, Julius excused himself to make them some tea. Anything to beat the freeze. By the time he returned, Malcolm had gotten a fire going, and was warming his hands in front of it even as he stoked it further. He took his cup with a quiet thanks and sat back to relax in front of his handiwork.

“Fine end to the day,” Julius remarked.

“Yeah.” Malcolm cast a glance at him. “Never asked, was too busy inhaling dinner—did you have a good one?”

“Very,” he said with a smile. “Ran into an old friend of mine, spent some much-needed time with her.”

“Didn't think you were the sort.”

Julius gave his sly grin a dirty look and huffed in annoyance. “She—took care of me, in a way, when I was a youth. Not officially, mind, she was just always there for me, whenever I was here. I write her regularly, but I hadn't seen her in some time.”

Malcolm's expression sobered and he nodded. “That's good. That you saw her, I mean.”

“She preemptively dislikes you, by the way.”

He gave a bark of laughter and said, “Sounds smart.”

“It's nothing really personal,” Julius said. “She hates politics. Completely disapproves my line of work, always wished I'd become a doctor instead. Kept pushing me towards it as a child.”

“Oh?” Malcolm looked at him curiously. “Why didn't you?”

“I suppose,” Julius said, “I thought I could fix more, in politics. Silly, honestly.”

Malcolm said nothing, and after a moment, Julius glanced at him. He'd gone somber, sipping at his tea and looking at nothing in particular.

“And you?” Julius asked eventually. “Did you always want to go into politics? What were the child Malcolm's greatest dreams?”

There was nothing but the sound of the fire crackling in front of them for a long moment. Then a wry, tight smile appeared on Malcolm's face, unable to make it all the way to his eyes. “Doesn't matter.”

*

Life progressed.

Julius took to walking the village each morning after breakfast, and breakfast at the house was itself a much easier affair now that Malcolm saw taking the meal as a favor to Julius, perhaps even subconsciously labeling the act as a token which he could exchange at a later date for some kind of prize. And it didn't hurt that Julius had opted to cut down on the meats and eggs and increase the fruits and cereals. Something he hadn't known about Malcolm all those years they'd worked together, when you often ate whatever could be delivered at half three in the morning.

Malcolm mostly stayed behind in the greenhouse, though he'd also found the library and seemed to devour the books there, books whose spines hadn't been cracked in years and that sighed at every turn of the page now that someone was actually reading them. Julius was more than happy to let him be; doing nothing at all seemed to suit Malcolm, at least to Julius's eyes.

His walks took him to acquaintances and old friends, but at the end of the road he always found himself at Mrs. Trumbull's. A hot cup of tea exactly how he'd always loved it, in exchange for getting his hands dirty somewhere around her cottage—Malcolm would be shocked at the sight, as would many of his peers, but Mr. Trumbull had taught him a few things about adulthood that had managed to stay with him in spite of the rest of his upbringing.

One particularly bright, crisp afternoon, as Julius was attempting to fix the garden gate, she came up behind him and asked, “Will you be bringing your guest around at all?”

He paused in his work and frowned at her. “I thought you didn't like him.”

“I don't,” she said. “But it seems strange that he's staying at your home but nobody in town has even met him.”

Julius pressed his lips into a thin line. “Has it gotten around town, then?”

“Just that you've got someone cooped up in there with you,” Mrs. Trumbull said. “Nobody's been brave enough to breach the castle walls and try to figure out who it is.”

“It's not like I keep him hidden away,” he said. He turned back to the gate. “We've been to the inn for breakfast a few times now. And dinner, once.”

She humphed and tapped her cane impatiently. “So just a few meals? You won't bring him on a walk?”

“I don't think he wants to come,” he admitted. The gate hinge squeaked at him as he tested it, but worked somewhat better than it had been working before. “I never realized he was such a homebody.”

“Let him be a homebody here, for lunch tomorrow,” she said. She nudged him in the ribs. “I'm curious and you owe me.”

He swallowed down his exasperation—he did owe her, really—and sighed. “I can try, Mrs. Trumbull, but I can't guarantee he'll want to come. He's his own man. And I think I'd already pushed him too far, before.”

“Just ask. I'll make your favorite.”

At that, he cringed. “If he's coming for lunch, perhaps not. He, ah. Prefers no meat.”

She blinked owlishly at him through her thick spectacles. “Vegetarian?”

“Yes.”

“I don't think I've met one of those before.”

Julius frowned and said, “There are plenty of vegetarians here. And the inn has an entire menu for it, and there's a vegetarian restaurant in town. It's been there for years.”

“Well I've never been there,” she said with a scandalized scoff.

“I—all right. It's fine, just keep the meat out of the meal.”

“...Does fish count?”

“Fish—yes. Fish counts.”

She frowned at him. “I'll make do. Bring him anyway.”

“Yes, Mrs. Trumbull.”

By the time Julius was home, the sun was beginning to set behind him and the crisp air was turning uninvitingly cold. “Malcolm, are you here?” he called out as he entered the foyer.

“Library,” Malcolm said, his voice muffled through the walls and distance.

There was an odd tone to it, however, one that Julius could pick up on in spite of the interference, and he made his way to the library with some concern. “Everything all right?”

“Sam just called,” he said. He was seated with a book opened and turned over his knee, his phone in hand. He looked up at Julius blankly. “What do you say to lunch tomorrow?”

Julius stood there momentarily speechless. “...I was about to ask you the same thing.”

He would have to let Mrs. Trumbull know she'd have a slightly fuller house than she'd thought.

*

“I used to be Malcolm's PA,” Sam said as she accepted another cup of tea. It was a cold day out, drizzling and gray as they all gathered in Mrs. Trumbull's sitting room.

“And now you're out of that world I hope,” Mrs. Trumbull said. “Nice young girl like you shouldn't get caught up in such terrible business.”

Sam smiled graciously and—Julius had forgotten that she had been nearly as much Malcolm's protege as that Reeder boy, and likely more talented. They had been thick as thieves at times and she had the same ability to charm and disarm as he once had. She smiled and said, “I'm at a not-for-profit now. Public relations.”

“Well, that's fine,” Mrs. Trumbull said with a smile. “Malcolm, more tea?”

“Yes please,” he said quietly. “Thank you again for having us over.”

“My pleasure. Only wish Jules had thought to bring you by earlier,” she said.

Malcolm looked at him quizzically, mouthed, “Jules?” and Julius gave him a desperate stare that he hoped meant, “Later.” It seemed to work, as Malcolm said nothing more.

Julius had been worried about the lunch; would Malcolm want to meet anyone else, would Sam be willing to share her time with Malcolm with somebody she didn't know. But in the end it had worked out well, as Mrs. Trumbull's focus had been spread around the three of them, and Malcolm could keep himself out of the limelight most of the time while Sam caught them all up on what she was doing lately. He'd never been one for attention before, and he certainly wasn't vying for it now, so Sam's presence had meant he could enjoy some time out of the house without worrying he'd be the focus.

And Sam, bless her, had seemed to understand this instinctively, gently guiding the conversation to her own life—the new job, a girlfriend she was seriously thinking of asking to be her fiancee, a new flat in a nicer part of town—and away from anything Malcolm would feel the need to respond to. By the end, Mrs. Trumbull was sated, having met both Malcolm and the sweet young woman who had been such a large part of his life for so long, and Julius found himself breathing a sigh of relief.

“You'll drop by again,” Mrs. Trumbull said as Malcolm and Sam made their way to the door.

“Of course,” Sam said, smiling at Malcolm as he nodded in agreement.

Julius hugged Sam goodbye and said to Malcolm, “I'll see you at the house.” Sam would walk him back, and he knew they'd want some time for themselves, so he waved at them as they left before returning to Mrs. Trumbull's kitchen.

“Leave the dishes, Jules,” she said from the sitting room, “and come here.”

Sitting on the sofa was the keen-eyed woman he'd known from his youth, the one who'd seen through his fumbling lies and efficiently cleaned him up even as disdain, always aimed at others, not him, had brimmed under her skin. “Yes, Mrs. Trumbull?” he asked, as innocently as he could.

“Just what were you so afraid of? Is a cottage pie without the ground lamb really that frightening a concept?”

“I-” He sighed, dropped down into the armchair across from her. “I just wanted it to go well. And it did, so...hurrah.”

“All through lunch you looked like someone had a gun to your head,” she said. “You thought he'd say something out of turn?”

“No,” he said quickly. He felt a pressure building up behind his eyes, and he took his glasses off, pinched the bridge of his nose. “That is, I thought it might go downhill in a more general sense.”

“And if it had?”

“If it had, I wouldn't have gotten him out of the house again,” he said. “You don't understand.”

“That's true,” she admitted. “Only just met the man. Seems very quiet.”

Julius laughed sharply. “He's not really.”

“You sure?” She peered at him over her glasses. “I know I don't understand, but do you understand?”

Truthfully, he didn't, and he nearly said so. He would have liked to have talked with Sam, or James or anyone who might know how to solve the parts of the puzzle he hadn't had any luck with—the knowledge of why, exactly, Malcolm was so wary of time spent with anyone, and with offers of aid.

“I'm trying to,” he finally said.

She regarded him carefully, thoughtfully. “When he talks, what do you hear?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Whatever he tells me? I'm not sure what you mean.”

Mrs. Trumbull wore a familiar frown at his response, weathered with age but the same one she'd worn so many other times through his life. It wasn't a frown of disappointment or anger, but one that implied she saw something he didn't, and was waiting for him to catch on. She had always known when he'd simply needed time to catch on, and over time he'd taken that frown as a sign of faith in his own intelligence and abilities. “I mean, what's he really saying when he says things to you? And what are you saying to him?”

“You mean-” He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. The example that came to mind immediately was, unfortunately, his own threats to throw Malcolm out—and how Malcolm had been in no real place to do anything but live with said threats. “Ah. Of course. I've been paying more attention to that, lately.”

“Make sure you keep at it,” she said. “He's a strange one.”

“What do you mean?”

“You ever seen someone who so clearly wants something but can't figure out how to get it?” she asked quietly. “Keep an eye on him. He's hiding something he doesn't want to hide.”

*

By the time Julius made it back to the house, the late autumn sun was low in the sky, weak and struggling to break through the gray clouds. Everything around him took on a slightly dingy, dismal hue until he opened the door to his house. The warm browns of the foyer, the dark but strong blue of the walls of the hallway leading to the rest of the home, the sounds, somewhat distant, of Sam and Malcolm chatting and laughing in the sitting room, coalesced into a strangely bright little picture against the backdrop of the muted afternoon.

“Is that you, Jules?” Malcolm called out, his voice lighter than Julius had ever heard. “Better be, don't think either one of us is prepared for a home invasion.”

“Just me,” he said. Coat and shoes off, slippers on, he headed to the sitting room to see them. Malcolm actually looked relaxed, and Sam, one leg under her as she sat on the chaise near the fireplace, looked triumphant. If Malcolm's mood were her doing, and Julius fully believed it was, then she had every reason to be. “Will you really be calling me Jules now?”

“Until you explain where it came from,” Sam said with a smirk.

Julius sighed, swallowed the impulse to roll his eyes, and said, “It's a very short story. When I met Mrs. Trumbull, I hadn't wanted anyone to know who I was. I was quite shy, you see, and my family was well known in the village, and so I told her my name was Jules in order to hide my true identity.”

“Like Clark fucking Kent's glasses,” Malcolm said, a grin slowly forming on his face. “It never worked.”

“Of course not,” Julius said. He sheepishly smiled and added, “But she decided that was to be my name whenever I came to her, and I've never minded it. I almost went with Jude, as I quite liked the song. Rather glad I'd chosen Jules instead.”

“Eh, not a bad story, I'd give it a six,” Malcolm said.

“That's at least a seven,” Sam said. “It's quite cute.”

Not sure whether to be defensive or dismissive, Julius said, “If I'm allowed to comment on my own life, I'd say it's a full ten.”

Sam stood with a smile and said, “Fine, it's a ten. Malcolm, you're over-ruled.” She looked down at Malcolm opened her arms for a hug. “I have to go, but, really, it's been wonderful seeing you.”

“Don't be a stranger,” he said, standing to meet her. He stopped suddenly and looked to Julius. “That is-”

“Sam, you are welcome to drop in at any time,” he said. “I concur wholeheartedly with Malcolm, do come back soon.”

They saw her off together, walking her out to her car and waiting until they saw her tail lights disappearing up the road. Malcolm sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets against the growing chill. “That was good. Seeing her.”

“Yes, very,” Julius agreed.

“Thank you.”

It was so quietly said that Julius almost missed it. He looked at Malcolm, turning his eyes away from the road to take in his profile; he was as gray as the sky on the horizon, his hair curling in the wind and his eyes filtering the light in such a way that the blue Julius normally saw there was nearly gone. It made him look somehow brittle, crystalline and impermanent, as though he were himself a sketch on the same sheets of blank newsprint he kept in his room.

His breath appeared as a cloud in the cold air as he sighed, and as if on instinct, Julius put his hand on Malcolm's shoulder to give him a reassuring squeeze. “If you wish to take dinner alone tonight,” he said, “I would not feel disobliged.”

At this, Malcolm looked at him curiously, a question in his eyes that he didn't voice. But he nodded, turned to leave. Stopped, didn't meet Julius's eyes and asked, “You sure?”

“One hundred percent,” he said. With a smile, hoping to lighten things, he added, “No take-backs.”

So it was with some surprise when, later that evening, Malcolm took his plate and sat down at the same table as him.


	4. A Late Frost

The conversation was rarely more than small talk, but it was not lost upon Julius that Malcolm was spending more and more time sharing the same space as him. Of course, he did still spend most of his days in the greenhouse, in his room or around the house doing some of the small chores involved in the general upkeep of things, but he would bring books out of the library to sit with Julius in the sitting room, or the observatory, or to the kitchen table if Julius were in the midst of cooking.

If this was the next step Malcolm wanted to take, then it was one Julius was fine with.

There was little time, however, for him to contemplate how he had come to this point in his life. But when he did—generally over a cup of tea with Mrs. Trumbull, as he did make a point to see her each day—it did seem to him that he had almost inadvertently fallen into the role of trying to fix things for Malcolm, without really knowing what it was he was meant to fix. And he had botched parts of it, had witnessed things that he wasn't sure Malcolm had wanted him to witness. A word had come back to him from their brief time in London, the word that Malcolm had used to describe why he had gotten into sketching and drawing in the first place.

He had asked Malcolm—delicately, he'd thought, discreetly and somewhat indirectly—whether he would like talking to someone besides Julius himself. He'd learned from chatting with Mrs. Trumbull that there was now a Doctor Chen in town, quite friendly and easy to work with, and she likely had some room in her schedule.

“He said no,” Julius said, over a cup of her wonderful tea.

“Just like that?” she asked.

“Well,” Julius said. He shrugged. There had been a few more choice words, though, he recalled with some skewed sense of victory, those choice words had not been aimed at him for asking. “More or less.”

Mrs. Trumbull hummed a bit and pushed the plate of biscuits at him. He gladly took one as she asked, “And you?”

Biscuit halfway to his mouth, he paused. “What about me?”

“I'd wager you haven't written a single word of that book you're meant to be writing,” she said. Off his slightly guilty look, she sat back, a triumphant yet somber look on her face. “You've been here nearly a month, Jules. Will you be working at all?”

“I've got Malcolm to look after,” he said, half sputtering. “That's a task unto itself.”

“True. Who's looking after you? Don't say me, half the time we only ever gossip.”

He held back a laugh; her concern was admirable, but he felt he could safely wave it away. “The writer's block had gotten to me well before Malcolm turned up at my doorstep. It's unrelated.”

“Didn't say it was related. Just asked who was looking after you,” she said. She had that piercing look on her face, as though she could see inside his very soul, and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“I'm fine, Mrs. Trumbull.”

“Hmm.” She took a sip of her tea. “You'll help me clear out the cellar today?”

Relieved at the change of topic, he sighed. “Yes, of course, Mrs. Trumbull.”

“You always were a good boy.”

Julius blushed ever so slightly, telling himself he was simply annoyed at the label.

*

When he returned to the house, he was dirty—far dirtier than he'd expected to be, given the small size of Mrs. Trumbull's cellar. So he took his boots off outside the front door, carrying them in to rest them on the boot tray, and carefully folded his coat up to be cleaned later that evening. He even thought about stripping further, a lifetime of training screaming at him in response, but the only thing that truly stopped him was Malcolm. The idea of Malcolm finding him down to his socks and pants in the foyer was not quite the most pleasant thought he'd ever had.

He walked carefully through the house, trying not to touch anything as he made his way to his rooms. A quick shower, then getting laundry started, was necessary before he could even think to begin dinner. He hoped Malcolm didn't mind a later meal than normal.

It was only when he was barely finished his quick scrub, towel around his waist and skin still warm from the hot water, that Malcolm appeared again. He knocked, at least; Julius could not scold him for manners, as he'd made the clear attempt. But the bedroom door had not clicked all the way shut, a flaw from age more than anything else, and Malcolm's innocent knock swung it open.

“Oh,” Malcolm said, his eyes going wide before he turned away. “Right, uh.”

Julius's hands shot up to shield—well, he wasn't quite sure. His nipples. Julius's hands shot up to conspicuously shield his nipples, for whatever that was worth. “Sorry,” he said, hoping that his towel didn't fall away.

“Sorry,” Malcolm echoed. His eyes flickered back to Julius, a pink flush creeping up his neck and tinging his ears. “Was just—I went ahead, got dinner started. Why are you naked.”

“One tends to be,” Julius said, “when one bathes.”

“Aye. Of course.”

Malcolm seemed more embarrassed than Julius felt; he didn't think he looked that bad mostly nude, and he was beginning to feel the onset of righteous indignation. “If that's all, I'd like some privacy to become less naked.”

That startled Malcolm out of his awkward reverie. “Sure. I'll see you—that is, dinner.”

This time the door did click shut fully. Door knob jiggled for good measure outside the bedroom. Julius dropped his hands with a sigh. At least, he thought, the encounter had been merely awkward, and nothing more damaging than that. There was the matter of how Malcolm had looked at him a second time, but—don't overthink things, he chided himself.

He then realized he was still standing nearly in the nude, a full minute after the encounter. Somewhat sheepishly, though nobody was around to see, he began to pull himself together before heading down to the kitchen to see what damage Malcolm had wrought.

*

There was no damage. In fact, there was only a perfectly pleasant, though entirely meatless, meal in which to indulge. “You're a man of many hidden talents,” Julius marveled.

“At least some of us try to keep them hidden,” Malcolm said.

A tease, softened by the look in Malcolm's eyes. So Julius simply rolled his eyes and continued enjoying his meal, asking, “Is it my fault you opened the door?”

“It's your house, and it's broken, so yes. It is.”

Foiled by logic. Perhaps he could call someone to repair the doors, not just his own but all the ones that now hung strangely from their hinges, the ones that opened if you walked on a creaky floorboard the wrong way and the ones that stuck in the wrong kind of weather; or, perhaps he could do it himself. “You know, Mrs. Trumbull finds me quite adept with the tool box. I was thinking-”

“Phone a handyman, your Overestimating-Your-Own-Skill Lordship.”

“Right. Probably for the best.”

There was an amicable silence for a moment. Then: “Adept with tools?”

“Have you missed the crude double entendres?”

“It's gonna be a bit cold overnight. After dinner, show us what you can do with some hard wood.”

“This is terrible even by your standards, Malcolm,” he said. “This is James's level.”

Malcolm shrugged, casually speared some roasted potatoes with his fork. “Out of practice. Give me some time.”

But while Malcolm had been talking, the meal had called to Julius, and he had responded by redirecting his focus. So to Malcolm, he absently murmured, “I'm sure I can give you more than that.”

This time the silence was more awkward than amicable, and he looked up to see Malcolm glaring at him. It was a bit sick, but he'd missed that glare. “Now you've made it weird,” Malcolm said.

“You're the one acting like you've never seen another human being beneath their clothes before,” Julius said, his skin beginning to feel hot. “You're making it weirder.”

Malcolm grumped back to his meal. “Lock the door better next time.”

Julius vowed to do just that. Except—“Is this sort of dinner what I can expect if I don't?”

“Julius.”

“I might have to take up exhibitionism if it is.”

“Julius, no.”

He snickered as the glare intensified.

*

As the days continued to pass, Julius found that there was not much to complain about. He'd placed an order for more of Malcolm's sketch books; having found stray pages around the house and greenhouse, he'd been strangely proud to see improvement, raw skill turned into something one might call elegant. One day, he would ask Malcolm who had recommended the practice to him, and what he got out of it; not yet, though, for fear of bringing up a topic that Malcolm might not want to revisit. He was happy enough that Malcolm had this creativity in him, and a way to pass the time.

For his own creativity, however, he could not say the same. The book that he was attempting to write had been stalled even before he'd gotten started, and time at the country home had not helped matters. Of course he had outlines here and there, verbal sketches and phrasing that he might include. But he had no real impetus to start.

If he could write a single word, it would be about Mrs. Trumbull and her late husband. What anyone might want to hear about a child of privilege and his upbringing—whenever he struggled to be positive about the endeavor, this was the question he was most at a loss to answer.

The observatory had become his de facto writing room, but the only times he found he got anything done were the times Malcolm wandered in to join him. And even then, things were haphazard at best. A ghostwriter was what he needed, or at the very least an assistant with greater time management skills than his own, but if he were being honest, the real issue was that he did not want to write, and he did not want to examine why. Surely he had a story people would pay to read, if only out of morbid curiosity, but was it a story he wanted to put down on paper?

He took to walking. As he had done when they had first arrived at the house, he walked the grounds, walked into the village. He walked the halls late at night, re-learning where each creaky floorboard was (and learning of the new ones in the process). By now, the press had learned that Malcolm was there with him, but as he was out of politics, and as Malcolm's prison release had been well over a month ago, it was no longer news and the assumption was that Malcolm had offered an old colleague aid in whipping his memoirs into shape.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and Julius feared for both of them what would happen if he returned to London with nothing to show for his absence.

It was early one morning that he was on one of his walks. His journey was cut short by the onset of a cold drizzle that threatened to become a much heavier rain, and by the time he made it back to the house, the clouds were ready to burst. He was lucky that they held off until he was indoors, taking his boots off, but there was still a nervous energy inside him that he wished to burn off.

So he paced, as he sometimes did at night. In stocking feet, taking quiet steps so as to not disturb the other occupant of the house who was surely still asleep.

But there were floorboards he didn't yet know. The one he stepped on made barely any noise—if he had been inside a room, the rain against the window would have drowned out the creak entirely, and the rain against the roof very nearly did just that—but it shifted things. A stuck door got unstuck, eased open. And in the sliver of light seeping out into the hall, in the small window between jamb and door, his attention was captured.

Malcolm, on his back in bed, sheets pulled up to his ribs and an a-shirt over his frame. One arm flung out to his side, the other curled with his hand over his eyes. Julius found himself enraptured by the rise and fall of his chest. He'd always found Malcolm handsome; he had eyes, and a bit of sense, after all. Beyond the tyranny there had always been a man who had simply captivated him, physically as well as mentally.

But now he was caught by the beauty of the dim, gray morning light against bare skin, the proof of life in each breath Malcolm took. So enraptured that it took him a moment to realize that those breaths were coming too quickly—gasps, nearly. And the hand over his eyes was not casually draped there, but held over a brow that was furrowed in what Julius thought looked like distress. A muscle twitched in Malcolm's jaw, his throat worked as he swallowed heavily, as he held back something that threatened to burst in spite of his best efforts, and his hand dropped from his eyes to cover his mouth.

Closed eyes, screwed shut; Julius was suddenly aware of how private this was. Intensely so, and deserving of respect. Malcolm was not the kind of man who'd want this witnessed.

Feeling more than a little sick at himself, he crept back to his room, taking extra care not to make any more noise. Mother nature aided him as the wind and rain beat against the house, and he made it to his bed without incident.

Julius fought back every urge in every part of him that told him to go back to Malcolm, to interrupt whatever it was that was going through his mind. His own mind reeled; he'd thought Malcolm had been doing better here, away from everything and with a hobby to distract him. Now he realized he'd had no idea.

He could no more unsee what he'd seen than he could unravel his own heart. But Malcolm could not know, could not be allowed to know; he'd accuse Julius of spying, he wouldn't be wrong, and whatever advances they'd had over the past month or so would disappear entirely.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Julius rested his elbows on his knees and waited, listening for a sign that Malcolm was up and about. He heard it after a few nearly intolerably long minutes, the creak of the floorboards, the whine of a door opening and the click of it shutting, the shuffle of feet over a rug as Malcolm headed somewhere else in the house. The guest bathroom door opening, and the sound of water running.

There would be no speaking of it, then. Julius took a deep breath and headed to the master bath, to splash a bit of water on his face and make like he hadn't been awake for over an hour already. By the time he made it downstairs, Malcolm was helping himself to a light breakfast; it was something he'd been doing the lately, ever since their first breakfast at the inn. Julius had been growing used to seeing Malcolm in his kitchen now, pulling together a meal either for himself or for the two of them.

What he wasn't used to was the rest of the sight before him, and he wasn't sure he'd ever be used to it. When Malcolm had first come to him, his hair had been cropped short, almost military in its look. The soft curls had grown out over the next few weeks and now, if Julius were being honest, it almost looked in need of a cut. Malcolm was nearly permanently casual these days, a complete change from the Malcolm he'd known who used to be nothing more than practical in his ill fitting suits and perfunctory hair cuts.

He tried not to read anything into it. He smiled instead and said, “Good morning, Malcolm. Did you sleep well?”

“Like a dead baby,” Malcolm said with his own smile.

“Well, that’s certainly an image.” If Malcolm was going to put on a pleasant face, Julius was not going to press. He set about making himself some toast, and found a mug of tea placed next to him. Strong brewed, sweetened to within an inch of its life. “Thank you. Any plans for the day?”

“You know, same old. Abduct a calf or two, leave the remains in a crop circle for the locals to figure out.”

Julius pursed his lips and turned to look at him. There was a light, airy effect to his words, entirely faked, entirely transparent. “I’ll be going into town later, would you like anything?”

“Peace, quiet, and some time to myself?” The smile still looked pleasant, but the eyes had a flash of something else.

Blinking rapidly and frowning slightly, Julius nodded. “Of course. I, um. I’ll work in the observatory, if you’d prefer I keep myself to one room.”

“Would you.”

“Yes,” he said.

The interaction was strange, unsettling, to the point where he’d begun to suspect his tea. He drank it anyway; no use wasting a perfectly good cup, especially not one prepared to his bizarre tastes without even the hint of a derogatory comment, regardless of the risk of poison.

*

True to his word, Julius mostly remained in the observatory for the remainder of the day. He barely heard Malcolm as he attempted to work on the book that refused to be written, and if it had not been steadily pouring rain, he would have made his way to Mrs. Trumbull’s instead.

It gnawed at him, though, that he hadn’t seen Malcolm since that awkward moment in the kitchen. By the time the sun had set, early in the evening this late in the year, Julius had already made multiple small trips to other parts of the house. And he had not seen Malcolm at any time, no matter where he’d gone. He couldn’t see the greenhouse from the observatory, but when he checked the hall, Malcolm’s shoes were still in place, and his coat still on the coat rack. Malcolm had to still be in the home with him; where, Julius did not know.

He knew the trick to Malcolm’s bedroom door now, though, he knew exactly which part of the floor to tread upon in order to make it open. A part of him wanted to use that trick; a smaller, but somehow more convincing, part of him felt guilty at the very thought. He would knock instead, and when he heard a muffled noise that sounded like consent to enter, he pushed it open.

Malcolm was seated in the chair near the window, elbow propped up on the sill and his hand loosely over his mouth as he watched the gray evening outside. “There was mud on your boots in the hall,” Malcolm said, “but you were acting like you’d just woken up. This morning, I could tell it was an act.”

Julius felt his heart plummet. There was no yelling here, nothing angry or raging, but he couldn’t help feeling a sort of smallness he’d only ever felt in childhood. “Malcolm-”

“My door was open, even though I knew I closed it last night,” he said.

Looking down, unable to meet Malcolm’s eyes, he said quietly, “It was purely accidental. The doors here, they’re older.”

“Oh?” Malcolm dropped his hand to his lap as he stood. “So you accidentally...what? Did you stare? Get a little thrill thinking here’s a nice project, Lord Nicholson’ll fix it?”

“No, Malcolm.”

“And if I’m not fixed properly, then what? If you don’t-” He stopped suddenly, his face twisted and nostrils flared as he gestured at Julius. “You don’t get off on the fucking charity case, what do you do?”

At this, Julius looked up, suddenly tired and confused at the ordeal. Softly, wearily, he asked, “Who says you’re a charity case? I told you, I’m doing this as a friend-”

“I know you’re getting something out of it,” Malcolm snarled. His eyes were crystalline, and his body was as tense as a spring, as he stalked across the room to press his fingers against Julius’s chest. But he was defanged and he knew it, even as he said, “I knew I shouldn't have trusted any of this, from the moment Jamie dumped me with you.”

Feebly, Julius said, “You can trust Sam, though.”

“Sam?” Malcolm laughed a mad little laugh. “She had fuck all to do with this. Am I right? You lied about this being her idea, too, didn't you?”

Julius stood in uncomfortable silence; it had to have been a guess on Malcolm's part, but he was too surprised by the accuracy to deny it in time. “I can't say I have been entirely truthful,” he admitted. “But there are no ulterior motives, none of us were trying to get anything out of the experience.”

“Everyone gets something out of whatever they do, son, it’s a basic law of fucking nature. Nobody sticks with you if you can’t provide them something. So what will you do when you stop getting whatever it is you get? Send me along home and put it in the book you’re not writing?”

There was something about the sharpness of his voice, echoing off thick glass, plaster walls, and old, worn wood; there was an unsettling familiarity that Julius could not countenance, not after a day of tension and wariness, and realizations that things hadn’t been exactly what they had seemed.

Certainly he couldn’t take it with Malcolm glaring daggers at him mere inches from his face. “Should I?” he asked, bristling suddenly. “Drive you to the station, give you all the time alone in the world? I’ve done nothing wrong here, Malcolm, besides attempt to live in my own house. This is, is rank paranoia, and I won’t stand for it.”

“Then don’t stand for it,” Malcolm said through gritted teeth. “But be honest. All that solidarity, it’s out the window now, yeah? All that ‘take the journey with you,’ were just words to get closer?”

It took all his might not to shove Malcolm away from him. “I don’t expect you to be profusely thankful, or thankful at all,” he said icily, “but you’ll respect me in this house until you are no longer in it. An accident is no reason to be this rude.”

There was still fire in Malcolm’s eyes, but even through his own resentment Julius could see something wavering there. “Right,” Malcolm said, his voice quiet and near-whispering. “Will I go now, or in the morning? Give you one more night to feel a little superior? Maybe show you a little ‘gratefulness’ first?”

Julius scowled at the tone he’d taken. None of this was what he’d wanted and there was a low, steady twist of anxiety deep in his chest over it, but he couldn’t help reacting to the words Malcolm was using to get under his skin. “Must you be crass?”

“Just trying to figure out what you get out of this arrangement, that’s all.”

Exasperated, tired, fully giving up and unwilling to go any further, Julius shrugged and sighed and said, “Friendship. Companionship. The happiness of seeing someone you care about—though God knows why I do—doing better. What is so unfathomable about this?”

“Everything!” Malcolm had still been in his face, but he prowled further away with a snarl. “I’ve got nothing, but you’re still digging for whatever minuscule scrap you can get-”

“Oh, for god’s sake, Malcolm-”

“You should stop,” Malcolm said. “Fuck you and your blue sky shitting cock-”

The rain outside sounded so much like the rain from the first night Julius took Malcolm in, so long ago in London; it spurred something in him, as much as the scent of old books and sound of harsh words in this particular room had spurred something else in him just a few minutes ago. What he had thought had been pure rage then had been a defense mechanism, he’d realized, and the anger in Malcolm’s words now was exactly the same. Every accusation, every slash of bitterness directed at him, was a brick being laid between the two of them. Whether it was deliberate or not, Julius didn’t know, but he pushed down his own anger and refused to let Malcolm rebuild a wall that he had been working so hard to dismantle.

Taking a deep, calming breath, he realized he had to take control—of himself and of Malcolm—before it spiraled into something neither of them could walk back from. “No,” he said, interrupting Malcolm’s quiet tirade. “Your attempts to push me away won’t work.”

He would wonder at this later: the bluntness of his statement caused something to collapse behind Malcolm’s eyes. There was a twitch of his lips that could have been a snarl, could have been a flinch, a searching look and a quick frown. “You think you can play me?” he asked. “You can’t play me. I knew I couldn’t trust you. You, and Jamie-”

“It’s over, Malcolm,” he said. Julius kept his voice steady, and his eyes unwavering. Malcolm was grasping in vain now, trying to assert some kind of power and intimidation he no longer had. It was up to Julius to push past that, ignore it, and stand firm no matter what Malcolm might say. “This morning was a simple accident, nothing else. Nobody is playing anyone.”

“Everyone plays the game. That’s just how it is.”

“No, it’s not.”

When he asked yet again, “What do you get out of it?” there was a pleading note to his voice that might have been there earlier, had Julius been listening properly.

But he was listening properly now, and he moved on instinct. His hands went to Malcolm’s shoulders, squeezing them gently, and he shook his head. “Nothing,” he said quietly. “And I want nothing.”

That Malcolm didn't shake Julius's hands off was in itself somewhat miraculous. Instead, he looked at Julius‘s fingers clasped over his shirt, a frown on his face and something questioning in his eyes. “I don’t believe it,” he said.

It could have been a statement of fact, but to Julius’s ears, all he heard was an implied apology that Malcolm might have meant with his words. “You don’t need to,” he replied. “Not yet. I can wait. And I'll keep saying it until you do believe it, but I truly only wish to help."

At first, Malcolm’s arms hanged by his side; he was confused, wary, borderline any number of things. Then, in one frighteningly fast moment, he looked back up at Julius, shrugged his hands off and stepped back with a near-feral snarl. “No such thing as accidents, Jules. Not with people like us.”

Just like that, the wall Julius had tried to pull down was back up between them. It felt like something had slipped through his fingers, that he hadn’t known he had been holding onto until it was too late.


	5. The Turnaround

The morning brought with it an eerie quiet as the sun struggled to climb over the horizon.

The first train leaving from the next town over was an early one, and it was the one Malcolm had requested. Breakfast, he assured Julius, would be procured from the newsstand just outside. The car was as quiet as the countryside they drove through, save for the low rumble of the engine and the sound of the rough road under the tires. It was the last thing Julius had wanted. After all the time they’d spent together, for everything to come undone due to a door that refused to stay shut, a man more used to being on guard than anything else, and his own inability to be upfront, was almost more than he could comprehend.

As they neared the outskirts of the village, Julius realized he didn’t need to comprehend it. Not if he refused to partake in it. So he turned his car around, ignoring, at first, Malcolm’s noise of surprise and look of confusion.

“The fuck are you doing?” Malcolm asked.

“You can’t leave without saying goodbye,” Julius said. “Mrs. Trumbull will be awake by now.”

“I-” Malcolm stared out at the passing scenery in some shock. “This is kidnapping. You’re a fucking criminal. Both of you, you’re working together.”

“Yes, of course, an upper class bellend who’s never seen a day of real work in his life, and an octogenarian with cataracts and a bum knee, are conspiring to abduct you,” Julius muttered. “Makes absolutely perfect sense. You’re saying goodbye to her and you’re going to act like a member of civilized society when you do it.”

There might have been a look on Malcolm’s face, but Julius was too busy driving to pay attention. It didn’t take long for them to reach Mrs. Trumbull’s home; her garden was dusted with snow and frost, and the path to her door still covered. He had no plan as they walked up to her house, and he hoped that one might magically appear as they stood and waited for her to answer their knock.

“Jules!” she said with a smile as she swung the door open. “You know where the shovel is in the shed.”

“I--Yes, Mrs. Trumbull,” he said, blinking rapidly.

“So get to work, the snow won’t shovel itself. Malcolm, come in from the cold, dear, you’ll make yourself sick-”

With that, Julius found himself on the front steps with the door shut in his face. Frowning, he did the only thing he could do: he walked back to the shed, got the snow shovel, and began to clear her path.

By the time he was finished—having worked up a slight sweat in spite of the chill—it was a half an hour later and Malcolm was being sent out to him. His hands were shoved deep into his jacket pockets, and his breath fogged in the air in front of him. “She’s made cocoa if you want,” he muttered.

Julius very much did want; he perked up at the very idea of her cocoa on a day like this one. But more than that, he wanted to know if she’d somehow miraculously convinced Malcolm to stay a little while longer. “In a moment,” he said, nodding at the snow he’d yet to scrape away. “Did you have a pleasant chat?”

“We had a private chat,” Malcolm said. He eyed Julius coldly. “You understand what the word ‘private’ means, yeah?”

At this he stiffened. “Not only do I understand the word, I also recall how blithely you used to ignore its meaning when it suited you,” he said.

Malcolm looked away and sniffed. “Was never for my benefit.”

“No, only for the party’s,” Julius said, “which was, of course, under your control.”

“At least there were reasons for it,” he spat. “When I went digging there were always reasons.”

Julius glanced down at his hands, squeezing his fingers to keep the circulation going as he held on to the shovel. “And there were always reasons for my own investigations. But none of this has anything to do with what happened the other day—an accident, through and through, and one I was content not to mention in order to give you the privacy you deserved.”

Malcolm dug into the mud and snow with the toe of his shoe. “Yeah, well,” he said. “Don’t quite believe you.”

He sighed. “Will you at least stay a little while longer? Til the weekend, perhaps?”

There was silence for what felt like an eternity. “Your Mrs. Trumbull has some work in the shed,” he said, not meeting Julius’s eyes. “She said she feels bad asking you when she knows you’ve got a book to write. Didn’t tell her you haven’t written a single line of whatever horse-shitting blue-sky taint sweat you’ve promised your publisher.”

“They’ve given me a very loose timeline,” he said dismissively. “Thank you for agreeing to help her in my stead.”

“You'll have to figure out what to do when I decide to leave,” Malcolm said. His jaw was set firmly, cheeks sucked in as he stared resolutely at anything but Julius. “I haven't changed my mind about that.”

Julius had half a mind to throw the shovel down, suddenly finding it aggravating and cumbersome to keep hold of, but settled for jamming it into the snow until he hit dirt. “Right, of course,” he said, “because of all the myriad sins in the world, this one, the sin of, of giving a damn, of taking a literal wrong step whilst trying to fix something, that's the one you decide is a sin too great to bear.”

“Don’t act like I’ve got no reason to distrust you,” Malcolm snarled. “It might have been my own fault getting complacent, but I never forgot, not really.”

He felt the heat rising in his cheeks and for the first time in his life, Julius fully understood the phrase “seeing red.” He gave in to his baser instincts, tossed the shovel to the ground and stalked towards Malcolm. “You ungrateful little-”

Malcolm shoved him back. “Nothing to be grateful for-”

Before he knew what was happening, he was pushing Malcolm away as words thoughtlessly came out of him. If you were to ask him what he’d said, he’d have no recollection of the details, only the heat; Malcolm seemed to be in a similar state, snapping and digging in, going for the jugular wherever he could.

It was with some shock, then, that Julius watched as a heavy, dense ball of snow hit Malcolm square in the cheek. Flabbergasted, he stared, until he felt the cold and wet impact of another snowball against his neck, flakes drifting down his collar to melt and chill.

“Jules, inside, now,” Mrs. Trumbull said. She was leaning heavily on her cane, glaring at the two of them as though they were nothing but a pair of tomcats causing her great annoyance. “Malcolm, off to the shed with you, clean it up like you said you would.”

Malcolm rubbed his cheek, scowling, but his glower dissolved in awkward shame and he nodded as he tromped off. Abashed, Julius picked her shovel back up and placed it by the front door as he followed her in.

“There’s cocoa waiting for you,” Mrs. Trumbull said sharply.

“Yes,” Julius said. “Malcolm mentioned it.”

“Hmph.” She sat down at the table, opposite him, and pushed a plate of biscuits towards him. “What else did he mention?”

“That he’s staying at your request.” He bit into a biscuit—chocolate dipped, the kind he’d always liked with cocoa—and tried not to think too much about why he’d come here.

“Is that all?”

He nodded, keeping his own many questions at bay. “Yes, Mrs. Trumbull.”

“And what do you have to say about it?”

Here, he was unsure; he had no idea what, if anything, Malcolm had told her. Instinct told him to keep his true thoughts secret, and he said, “I’m hardly his minder. When he’s ready to go home, he’ll go, and I’ve no say in it.”

She continued to glare sharply at him. “What are you doing, Jules?”

“My best?” he offered with a weak smile.

With a sigh, she sat back and tapped her cane on the floor, regarding him thoughtfully. “Are you being honest?” she asked. “Are you being truthful, with him and with yourself? This isn’t your-” She waved her hand in his direction, her face twisting into mild disgust. “This isn’t politics, is it.”

He licked his lips and said, “I’m being as truthful as I can be. That he doesn’t fully believe me...I’m inclined to think that is due to our previous relationship.”

“Now you see,” she said, though her tone was not unkind, “why I’ve never approved of your career.”

They had been through this discussion before—Julius refused to call it an argument—and he had no interest in rehashing the debate. Still, he said, “It’s the business of leading the country, there are simply—negotiations. Things that are not put on the table, moves that are made-”

“My dear, you can spare me the justifications,” she said. “Nobody really wants any of that. And more to the point, it’s no good for you. Why you can’t just be open and honest, I-”

He sipped at his cocoa to try and fill the sudden and rather awkward pause she had taken. “Yes. Well.”

“You’re not your father, love. And nobody else here is, either.”

Julius stared down at the table, his cocoa, his hands, anything to avoid meeting her eyes. Honesty, full, brutal honesty, was a risky proposition; he had learned early and learned well to instead immediately appease with whatever words it took, while thinking of the next ten moves forward. He was as good at that as he was at anything, but as a result was out of practice with the very thing she was pushing him to do.

And to do such a thing with Malcolm, who seemed even more averse to the notion—he took his glasses off and ran a hand over his face, filled with mild dread at the thought. “I may be running back in for another cup of cocoa,” he said.

She reached over and patted his hands. “I’ve got a packet of double chocolate biscuits. I’ll bring them out for you.”

Silver lining, he thought. He might want to be swallowed up by the earth whole when all was said and done, but at least there was extra chocolate waiting for him. He smiled a little at that, briefly. Then he asked, “How did you know what was happening? When we got here, it was like you knew you had to split us up.”

“You showed up at my doorstep with a look on your face like the world was ending,” she said. “Never been able to hide from me, Jules. Now go, do your good deed for the day.”

*

He found Malcolm in the chilly shed, unpacking a box onto a tall-ish shelf. The air smelled of cold and sawdust, a bit musty as dust motes floated through the pale day’s light. Around them, decades of ephemera and detritus from two lives spent together. “May we talk?” he asked.

“You can,” Malcolm said, pretending to be preoccupied by the task at hand.

Julius grit his teeth and steeled himself. Then he realized talking to a brick wall might not be the hardest thing ever, and his shoulders relaxed at the thought. “The other morning, you were right. I was watching you.”

Malcolm stopped shelving, leaned against the counter and sighed. “You fucking psycho, you’re actually admitting it.”

“I am. I—I didn’t know what I was seeing, it was truly an accidental glance that turned into me watching for far too long, because.” He shrugged, helpless, squeezing his hands tight and fighting the urge to turn and run. About to admit aloud what he had tried in vain for years to never fully admit to himself, he steadied his nerves as best as he could and pressed on. “I find you beautiful; I was enraptured. And once I realized I was witnessing a private moment, I left. I was, and am, deeply ashamed to have broken your trust, Malcolm. But I was captivated; I’ve carried a torch for you for years. Surely you’ve known.”

At this, Malcolm was silent, thinking through Julius’s words. “I’ve known,” he admitted quietly. He faced Julius, but didn’t meet his eyes, crossing his arms as he stared down at the ground. The weight of the world seemed to be on his shoulders, and if Julius had thought he had looked weary before, he looked downright exhausted now.

“And I’ve only not mentioned it before,” Julius said, “out of deference to you. The intensity and exact nature of my own emotions are put aside, as I realize that the feeling is not entirely mutual. I am mentioning it now to explain what drives my need to see you well: I am fond of you, deeply so.”

For a long time, Malcolm said nothing. Then, just as quietly: “Gay.”

But there was no heat to it, and instead Julius found the flicker of a smile, one that reached the other man’s eyes even if it didn’t remain on his lips very long. His own smile appeared as he felt a weight lift off his chest. “Be that as it may, I am content to call you a friend, and keep my thoughts to myself otherwise. Can you trust that?” The smile disappeared like a light going out; something hard replaced it, though not entirely cold. He nodded and said, “All right. I understand if you don’t.”

“I would like to trust it,” Malcolm said slowly. “Just not there yet. Don’t know why I’m not able to.”

Julius regarded him with kindness, unable to feel anything else in that moment. He hadn’t expected the walls to come down immediately, and so was not surprised that they hadn’t, but he felt a surge of some kind of warmth at Malcolm’s admission. “Take your time,” he said, patient and sure.

Some instinct told him to step forward, even as Malcolm remained tightly wound, his arms crossing over his chest as though he were trying to close himself off, his jaw clenched so tightly Julius could see muscle twitching under the skin. For a moment, Malcolm didn’t react to Julius’s closeness, deep in thought and pensive. But the moment passed, and he turned towards him and stepped forward, his arms still stiff across his chest even as Julius reached out, hesitant and testing; his hands went to cover his face and then, as though defeated and surrendering, he returned the hug.

It was a strange thing, the way Malcolm’s arms tightened around him. Julius was used to a feral Malcolm, one who was alternately raw and closed off, who refused to show his hand no matter what. A very small part of him still believed this was some kind of ploy that Malcolm had generated. He quickly shut that part down. The man who was here with him on this day was a far different creature from the one he’d known years before. He was different even from the one who’d been escorted to his home just months earlier; still wary, yes, but conflicted and, if Julius could allow himself the indulgence of thinking this about someone such as Malcolm, lost. He rubbed Malcolm’s back, as he felt Malcolm bury his face against his shoulder.

It was a breakthrough, Julius realized, even if it wasn’t the one he’d expected. He could count on one hand the number of times Malcolm had thanked him since coming to stay with him, and those times had been hesitant, almost begrudging. This time, without a single word uttered, Julius could hear both the sincerity—which had never been missing, he had to admit—and also the ease with which Malcolm was giving it.

He held the moment close to his heart, because he knew that this was a side to the man that was likely a rare sight. Perhaps his Samantha had seen it in him before; perhaps even his former lieutenant. But for as long as Julius had known him, he had never witnessed openness like this, at least not in a moment of peace.

*

Julius spent a good part of the afternoon attempting to fix the door to Malcolm’s room, before giving up and calling Suresh’s boy to come take a look at it for him. Malcolm was off somewhere else; Julius had deliberately given him space, once they’d driven back to the house. He’d been fidgety, on the border between embarrassed and spiky, and so he’d sent Malcolm away with his pad and charcoal and told him to come back only when he felt like it.

There had been some note of relief in his eyes as he’d wandered away. That had been a few hours before, and the sun was now quickly setting. Julius was alone in a house with a newly fixed bedroom door, and he glanced out the window in a way that he hoped wasn’t too anxious before heading to the sitting room to start a fire.

Once the sun was down and he was still alone, he was quite content to look as anxious as he felt. He texted Malcolm an innocuous enough note about dinner, and then not fifteen minutes later sent another, slightly less bland note asking him to check in. A half an hour post nightfall, he was about to pull his own coat on and head out into the frigid, snow-dusted landscape when he heard the front door finally creak open. He was out of his chair in a fast second, taking long strides down the hall to see Malcolm fidgeting with his gloves and trying to stomp the snow off his shoes. “Lost track of the time,” Malcolm said through chattering teeth.

Julius reached out without asking and began undoing his coat. “I can tell. Come on, let’s get you out of all this and in front of the fire.”

Malcolm peered up at him as he tugged a glove off with his teeth. “You’re just trying to get me naked, aren’t you.”

“Yes, of course,” Julius muttered, even as he attempted to do what he was accused of. “It’s a lifelong dream of mine to bugger a particularly rude block of ice.”

“I don’t judge. Anyway, already seen you naked, suppose it’s only fair.”

He pressed his lips into a thin line and tried to look at anywhere but Malcolm. “Well come be nonjudgmentally rude and inappropriate somewhere warmer,” he said, taking hold of Malcolm’s arm and guiding him to the sitting room a bit more possessively than perhaps he should have, and a bit more possessively than he’d thought Malcolm might have allowed.

Dumped into a deep and soft chair with a wool throw over his shoulders and a mug of strong tea in his hands, Malcolm began to look slightly better to Julius’s eyes. If he was right, Malcolm was even looking like he'd put on just the smallest bit of padding; wishful thinking, perhaps, but wishful thinking he was willing to hang on to.

“Must have been a good afternoon for you to lose track like that,” he said, hoping he came off light and conversational, rather than slightly worried and concerned that someone who used to be able to keep track of an entire government would lose track of a simple thing like the sun setting while outdoors.

Malcolm shrugged, sipped at his tea. “Was fine. Too cold to sketch but fine for a walk.”

Julius leaned back and settled into his chair, wanting to ask a question that has been on his mind for weeks at this point. He wasn't sure whether Malcolm would be willing to answer; he tried to think of the most indirect way he could ask, or how to nudge Malcolm into answering without ever posing the question.

Then he realized that hidden intent was probably not the best approach for anything concerning Malcolm, and do he asked, “Where did you even get into, er, the production of art?”

Malcolm glared as though to ask both, “Where do you think?” and, “What are you even asking?” at the same time. But he said, “Prison. Wasn't that bad, they offered ‘personal enrichment’ classes. Mandatory. Took a basic course, ended up liking it.”

“Ah,” Julius said. “Do you plan on-”

“Sorry, I don't think I want to talk about how prison miraculously unlocked the creative in me,” Malcolm interrupted. “That is, if it's all the same to you.”

“Fair enough.” He went back to neutral territory. “Do you know, before we came here, I didn't even know you took walks.”

There was a smile Malcolm was attempting to suppress, some memory unearthed by the comment. “Yeah.”

“Shame it's too cold now for very much.”

“I don't mind the cold,” Malcolm said. “Better than being cooped up indoors, yeah?”

Julius had to admit it did sound better than sitting in an office all day, scribbling onto notepads about a book that might never be written at this point. “Perhaps I could accompany you next time?”

“This your way of keeping an eye on me?” Malcolm asked, though Julius noted he could not hear any hint of dissent or aggravation in his voice.

“It was not my intent,” Julius admitted, “but it may be a happy coincidence.”

With a nod, Malcolm said, “I'll allow it.”

“You feel all right with me keeping an eye on you?”

“How about we just don't talk about ‘feelings’ at all for a while,” he said, grimacing but shooting Julius a look of apology. “Not used to this psychoanalytical horse shit yet.”

Julius sat quietly for a moment, then asked, “Do you think you might be, some day?”

Malcolm stayed silent; Julius assumed that was a no. So it surprised him somewhat when Malcolm said, “Someday. With the right person.”

“I want you to know,” Julius began carefully, “that though I hope to be that person, or one of them, it's also perfectly fine if I'm not.”

With a weak smile, Malcolm said, “Thought we were done talking about feelings.”

“We are; I'm only telling you I'll respect whatever boundaries you set,” Julius said. “If you ever tell me to. To fuck off, if you will. Then I'll stop.”

Though he didn't quite meet Julius's eyes, Malcolm nodded soberly and finished his tea. “I'll try to be polite about it, yeah?”

Julius ducked his head in gratitude. “I appreciate it. Just, please do let me know if there's anything I can do.”

He shrugged, as he seemed close to brushing off the offer. Then he abruptly grimaced and reached up to twist a bit of hair around his finger. His curls had come in, and Julius thought they looked quite nice but by Malcolm's expression, it was clear he didn't agree. “Actually. You know any good barbers around here?”

The corners of Julius’s mouth quirked up into a smile. “I know just the fellow.”


	6. In His Service

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is NSFW.

“I had a partner once,” Julius said, as he placed a paper strip around Malcolm's neck, “who so enjoyed receiving a straight razor shave with his trims, that I took it upon myself to learn both arts.”

“And you…kept buying the supplies for it even after he broke your wet, weepy heart?”

They had pulled a chair into Julius's en suite, as it was the only bathroom large enough for the task. Malcolm watched with some confusion as Julius snapped a cloth over him. “I enjoyed it so much I kept up the habit with my later partners.”

“... And none of these men ever left you over a haircut, correct? Or, you know, a carotid artery cut?”

“They left looking better than I'd found them.”

Malcolm raised his eyebrows, impressed, though Julius wasn't sure if he were impressed with his skill or with his confidence. “Well then. What am I getting from you today?”

“Whatever you like,” he said.

“Just trim it, for fuck’s sake.”

He clucked his teeth and shook his head at Malcolm's vagueness. “Suppose I'll make it up as I go along.”

In the end, he went with a taper, nothing too severe, simply cleaning up the back and sides, trimming the top. Malcolm was as good a subject as he could have hoped for, letting Julius move his head as needed, quieting down as Julius clipped in a more detailed fashion around his ears and sideburns. It was unexpected, the way Malcolm seemed to enter a state of not only silence as soon as Julius had begun, but obedience as well; perhaps he only knew it was better to not tick off the man clipping your hair, but Julius entertained the idle fantasy that it was more than that. He left Malcolm a good length on top, however, for selfish reasons: he liked the thick waves of salt and pepper hair, and found himself running his fingers through it more often than necessary.

When he was finished, he took a hand mirror off the counter to show Malcolm the back, and met his eyes in the wall mirror. “Thoughts?” he asked, hoping he'd hidden eagerness for Malcolm's feedback.

“Not bad,” Malcolm said, eyes wide with surprise and appreciation. “Really not bad. Nobody is gonna fucking believe this.”

He ran a hand over his own, bald head somewhat sheepishly. “Yes. Well. Ah, would you like a shave?” He'd warmed his scuttle and stropped a blade just in case, as Malcolm looked like he hadn't had a chance to shave that day.

“Eh.” He frowned. “Don't know. Would be nice, but I'm fine shaving like regular in the morning.”

“Oh, come on. When was the last time you allowed yourself to be pampered?”

That seemed to send an unexpected thought through Malcolm's brain, though he did well to hide it. Julius might have missed the flinch had he not been looking right at him. “I don't really need to be pampered,” he said, “though I guess I've got no choice.”

Julius was already pulling out the necessary equipment, soap, a favorite brush, a clean towel, while waiting for the tap to run appropriately hot. “Not really, no.”

Scuttle and soap placed to the side, he took the towel and ran it under hot water. “This will only take a moment,” he promised.

“Not like I've got anywhere else to be,” Malcolm said.

He wrung out the now warm towel, getting it as dry as he could, and smiled wryly. “Bed?”

“I'll sleep when everyone else is dead.”

He put his hand gently under Malcolm's chin, coaxing him to lean his head back before placing the towel on his face; with that done, he went back to working up a lather in the scuttle, mixing the soap against the bowl with quick moves of his brush. It only took him a few moments to brush enough lather onto his face, but he savored every second. If Malcolm swallowed hard in those moments, Julius chalked it up to nerves; if he somehow managed to become even more quiet, he chalked it up to just not having much to say.

So he worked meticulously, leaning down close enough that he could smell the soap on Malcolm's skin. His hands were warm from the prep work, and steady as he began to scrape the blade down Malcolm's face, one hand on the blade as the other was lightly on his neck to keep him from moving. “The trick is to tighten and flatten whatever you can,” he murmured. “Tilt your head, just like this.” Three fingers of his free hand pressed against Malcolm's temple, moving him just enough to create a flat plane between his cheek, jaw and neck, as he kept two fingers of his blade hand steady on the pulse point while the razor was held a centimeter away.

He was imagining something in Malcolm's eyes, surely. Some ghost of his past beaus, a strange heaviness in the way he avoided Julius's gaze. Even though his face was half masked in lather, Julius thought he could see a certain mix of openness, curiosity and pleasant apprehension, at once familiar but thrillingly unique to Malcolm. Whatever instructions he gave, whatever way he moved Malcolm's head, there was never resistance. The closest came when he said, “Bite your lip for me,” and even then, compliance quickly won out. Malcolm looked at him curiously, but did as he was told anyway. “That's right, good.”

His gaze dropped suddenly. Julius just needed one moment to scrape the blade against the skin under Malcolm's mouth, but the image of Malcolm looking down with his lip caught between his teeth lingered in his mind; the small sound of exhalation when Malcolm let go did, as well. He tried to move on, pushing these images away to focus on the task at hand, even as he realized he had secretly been hoping for moments exactly like them when he'd started.

He continued to work, not slowly but taking his time, partially for safety, partially because it was an almost meditative routine for him that he couldn't rush even if he wanted to, and, he hated to admit because it was so selfish, partially because he simply enjoyed being able to employ those soft touches and remain in close proximity to the man. Still, he was finished too soon, and he found himself filled with a low buzz of regret as he pushed Malcolm's head forward and held it there so he could clean up his neckline. When he reached for a washcloth, he knew he'd take his time with this step; turning the tap on to a slow trickle of warm water, he dampened the cloth, then wrung it dry. 

His thumb resting against the back of Malcolm's skull and the rest of his fingers on the crown, he tilted his head back up and began to wipe off the excess lather. It was surely wrong of him to deliberately extend the process like this, but he was intent on committing every moment to memory. He was aware of only the sound of water dripping into the sink, the feel of the warm washcloth sliding gently across Malcolm's skin, and the silent way Malcolm was letting himself be positioned. At least he had that quiet permission. 

“All set,” he said, as brightly as he could. He folded the washcloth over to a clean spot and began brushing clippings from Malcolm's neck, allowing himself one quick glance in the mirror before he pulled off the paper strip and cloth. “How do you like it?”

The question seemed to startle him out of some kind of reverie. “It's fine,” Malcolm said, his voice quiet and distracted as he looked himself over.

His hands were on Malcolm's shoulders as Malcolm reached up to stroke his clean-shaven face; suddenly he had the urge to follow Malcolm's touch with his own. He fought that urge, but, guiltily, he wrapped his hand just under Malcolm's jaw, tilting his head up before dragging his fingers across his Adam's apple. “Do you see how close the shave is?” he asked.

There was no imagining the hitch in Malcolm's breath then, or the way his lips parted as his eyes drifted to the mirror image of where Julius had his hand on his throat, the way he hesitated to touch that hand as though he were unsure it was real. “Jules,” he said, in a low voice that left nothing in question.

That was it, then. Surprising, yet somehow his brain raced through previous encounters and moments that in retrospect, made a light go off in his head. It was no idle fantasy, after all: something about Malcolm cherished being made, just as something about Julius cherished being the one making him. Two mismatched puzzle pieces, clicking together.

“Stand up,” he said; he didn't wait for Malcolm to comply, choosing instead to tighten his grip and almost force him out of the seat. 

Up, and pinned to the wall, Malcolm leaned forward, pressing his neck into Julius's hand as he tried for a kiss. Julius did nothing to stop him, only gave him what he sought out; one hand went to his hair as the other squeezed just hard enough for Malcolm to understand his intent as he kissed him.

Malcolm's hands were on his wrists but, instead of pulling him away--a fear Julius had felt under his skin for the last few seconds--they only seemed to keep him in place. He pulled back slightly, brushing his lips against Malcolm's before sliding his hand up his neck to his chin. “Open,” he murmured, pressing two fingers against his lips. “Open your mouth for me, Malcolm.”

When he sucked those fingers into his mouth, Julius felt the room spin. This was nothing he'd ever dared to hope for but so much of what he'd dreamt; he pulled his fingers out, tugging down so Malcolm would get the message. He kissed him again, deeply, throwing off his hands with a small movement before wrapping his own hands around Malcolm's wrists.

He wanted to be pressed against the wall, Julius realized, wanted his hands pinned above his head and Julius's knee spreading his legs apart. He wanted to be cared for, mostly. And Julius wanted so desperately to care for him. “Shower,” he said, reaching down suddenly to tug Malcolm's shirt off. 

The look of complete serenity on Malcolm's face in that moment was one that would stay with him forever. The way he let Julius instruct him, position him, until he was stark naked standing in the tub, his hands braced against the wall opposite the shower head. Julius pulled off his own kit and left it on the floor. The water was, blessedly, quick to heat up; he stood behind Malcolm, between him and the spray until he felt it was warm enough, tracing patterns up and down Malcolm's sides before grabbing him roughly as he kissed his neck and shoulders.

“Is this what you want?” It was a meaningless question asked as he pulled Malcolm back to him by his waist, but he wanted to hear the answer out loud. 

Malcolm nodded, pulled Julius's hands up to wrap around his chest, held them there. “Yes sir,” he said.

The added word, the way he addressed Julius--he inhaled sharply. It wasn't something he'd ever have asked Malcolm to call him, but it sent a thrill down his spine to hear it. Eyes closed, face slack, Malcolm looked so lost in the experience that Julius wasn't even sure he'd realized what he'd said.

So he kissed a spot right behind his ear, whispered, “Good boy,” and smiled at the shaky breath Malcolm took in response. He washed him thoroughly, rinsing every inch of him all the while ignoring his thickening cock, and when he was finished, bundled him out to dry him off. His hands wandered, taking every opportunity to tease his nipples, brush his fingers against his skin to find his hot spots. When he was happy with the state Malcolm was in, he manhandled him to the bedroom--something Malcolm was surprisingly eager about, if Julius were any judge of things.

Bright eyed, freshly shaved, skin pink from the hot shower: he looked too enticing as Julius pushed him back onto the bed. His cock was hard, clearly in need of attention, but Malcolm did nothing and seemed happy to let Julius take the lead on that as well. Julius was happy to oblige. “Lay back,” he said, kneeling over him on the bed.

There was no way Malcolm would last very long, and if he were honest with himself, he didn't want to draw it out anyway. The need to touch was too much, the need to give Malcolm exactly what he desired without delay too strong. He kissed him again before taking his cock in one hand and starting a solid, fast rhythm. “You're doing so well,” he murmured, lacing his other fingers into Malcolm's hair. “Would you like to come?”

“I-” He couldn't complete the thought, suddenly wordless, as though he were finally realizing what was happening, and nodded as he bit his lip in a bid to stay silent. That bid failed, when Julius changed his grip just so and did something with his thumb that seemed to send Malcolm temporarily into outer space.

At no time in his life did Julius ever think he'd have Malcolm Tucker squirming and pleading under him like this, yet here he was. A heat rose in his belly as he looked down at Malcolm, drank in the sight of his urgency and single minded passion. He wouldn't last very long either, especially not after watching Malcolm lock eyes with him, looking up at him with an open and brazen vulnerability, pulling his hand from his hair to put it back on his neck. 

If that was what Malcolm needed of him, that's what he'd get. A light squeeze of the arteries as he got closer to completion, eyes fluttering shut only to snap back open, determined to stay on Julius's until he came with a strangled gasp, spilling onto Julius's hand and his stomach.

Here was the test, then: a repeat of his earlier demand, as Julius took his fingers away from Malcolm's cock and brought them to his mouth. With heavy lidded eyes, Malcolm watched until Julius's fingers were at his lips; he opened without complaint for them, sighing in contentment as he cleaned them off.

After that, Julius needed only an embarrassingly small number of strokes before he shot over Malcolm's chest and belly. The heat in him stayed, shifted into something else as Malcolm lifted his head to look down at how Julius had marked him, as he swirled his fingers in it and brought that to his mouth as well. When Julius leaned down to kiss him, it was all he tasted.

He hated leaving Malcolm's side, but he quickly went to grab a washcloth to clean them both off. When he returned, he caught himself staring at Malcolm: in bed, one arm curled over his head, the other flung out to his side. The steady rise and fall of his chest with each breath. The relaxation evident on his face and the sweet, small smile playing at the corners of his parted lips.

He sat at the edge of the bed, cleaned Malcolm off, and kissed him again, chastely. “Will you stay here tonight?” he asked.

Malcolm replied by tugging him down onto the bed, somehow maneuvering them under the covers until Julius was on his back and he was curled up next to him. “You complete fucking jessie,” he mumbled warmly.

Julius blinked, then laughed at the absurdity of it. “I suppose so,” he said, pulling him close before switching off the light.


	7. The Calm

He woke up to the feel of the bed shifting under him. A milky early morning light filtered through the windows of his room, and he realized the movement was Malcolm, up briefly to use the bathroom. He stumbled back into bed after a moment, curled up next to Julius under the covers, and within a minute or two, was back asleep.

In that time frame, Julius realized two things. One, he hadn't had a chance to clean up the bathroom after giving Malcolm a haircut last night. Two, he was absolutely starving, which meant it was probably time for both of them to eat. “Malcolm,” he whispered, but the man was completely knocked out. 

Probably for the best, he thought. He slipped out of bed, pulled on his neglected pajamas, and set about quietly cleaning up the bathroom floor. Then, he went down to the kitchen, intent on whipping up something warm and filling for the man in his bed. A little more than half an hour later, he was loading a tray with two full bowls of piping hot oat porridge and a small bowl of almond slivers and dried fruit to mix in, a bit of warm milk, a few satsumas and two cups of coffee.

Malcolm was still asleep when he got back to the room, but the sound of the door creaking open woke him and he reached instinctively for Julius beside him. Julius tried not to smile at the confused frown he got when he found the bed empty, and instead said, “I've just made breakfast, and thought we could have it here.”

“Oh,” Malcolm said, clearly not yet awake. He blinked sleepily as he looked Julius over, pulling the sheets up with him as he sat up a bit. “You got dressed?” His voice sounded quite rough as he spoke; Julius decided then and there that he could get used to waking up to that.

“Nice and warm under the covers, not so much in the rest of the house,” he said ruefully. He put the tray down over Malcolm's lap and sat down next to him. “Would you like anything else? Tea? Yoghurt?”

“No, this is good, thank you,” he said quietly as he took in the food in front of him. For a moment, Julius feared that he was withdrawing, that he was judging the previous night as a mistake. But there was a light in his eyes that seemed so soft; Julius couldn't help himself, and he bent over to kiss his cheek.

“I promise you, I'd had no agenda last night,” Julius said.

“I know,” Malcolm said. He grabbed a satsuma and started to peel it, as he slid down slightly and leaned against Julius's shoulder. “That was good, too.”

Julius tried not to blush at the compliment. “I'd like to thank you for trusting me,” he said.

“Thank you for-” The words didn't come. 

Thinking to spare him any awkwardness, Julius took his bowl and said, “Yes, well, enough about feelings. Eat up before it all gets cold.”

Malcolm smiled easily at that, popped an orange slice into his mouth and tucked into his porridge.

*

The idea of a walk together had been very different from the reality of it, Julius realized. Of course, that was partially due to the fact that the idea had been born before the reality of Malcolm sharing his bed; the intimacy spilled over into their stroll even though they kept a physical distance from each other.

The day itself was pleasant enough, a crisp sort of cold that kept the snow on the ground but, with the sun shining brightly overhead, made things just comfortable enough to be outdoors. Julius tried to keep his glances at Malcolm to a minimum, focusing instead on the ground and path before him as he chatted about the history of the village.

There was a creek that ran through his property, near the edge right before the land turned into sweeping, high hills. The bridge over that creek had been in ill repair when he'd inherited the house, but he'd worked to restore it in due time and returned it to its former glory. “You might like this spot in the spring,” he told Malcolm. “Especially if you begin to work in other mediums. Have you thought about watercolors?”

“Bit tricky,” he said. He leaned against the railing to watch the water rolling over the pebbled bed below. “Maybe in the spring, though. Or next autumn.”

“Thinking that far ahead?” Julius joked. His smile stuttered when he saw Malcolm flinch. “Hey.”

“It's fine.”

“It's-” He was about to say that it wasn't, but the promise of privacy bested his curiosity. Of course he was still concerned, but he feared that if he pressed too hard, the trust that Malcolm had placed in him last night would be negated. “Shall I leave it alone?”

Malcolm nodded, his eyes focused on the stream. As Julius stood beside him, hands in his coat pockets and back tall and strong, Malcolm seemed the exact opposite: curled over with his elbows on the rail, hands hanging empty and open and shoulders drawn inward. Julius might not have been willing to press him for further speech, but he did pull him up, one hand on his chest until Malcolm stood straight and looked up; it was only then that Julius held his face and kissed his cheek, before stepping behind him and enclosing him in his arms.

“At your own pace, darling,” he murmured.

Malcolm grimaced but didn't move away. “One shag and you're already starting on the pet names?”

“I'd mentally started on the pet names the moment I first saw you,” he admitted.

“You know ‘cunt’ is not a pet name.”

“What about dear? Prince? Sweet, decrepit bonbon of a ghoul?”

“I like that last one, keep that one.”

He turned Malcolm around, slid his hands down until he was brushing his thumbs against the inside of Malcolm's wrists. “Are you all right with this?” he asked. “This sort of public display of affection?”

“Here, yeah.” He frowned, shrugged a little and glanced away. “Might have to build up to it in an actual public setting.”

“Oh?”

“It's probably not what you think,” he said. “I'm not--it's just. Men or women, I'm not-”

For a man so exquisite with words, it was remarkable to Julius just how much he seemed to struggle with explaining these things. Though perhaps he should not have been surprised; introspective description was a far different beast from the kind of wordsmithing Malcolm had performed during his career.

Regardless, he had an idea of what Malcolm might say. “It's a vulnerability, one that could be exploited?”

“In a way,” he said hesitantly.

Julius became aware of Malcolm's breath hitting his skin; he was crowding him, too much in his space, yet he hadn't tried to move away or shake Julius's hands from his wrists. “If you don't mind talking about it, in what way?”

Malcolm ducked his head, looked to the side, did everything he could to not meet Julius's eyes. But he said, “You ever feel like you're only as valuable as what you can provide people? Like you might feel something for a person, but they're just-” He stopped, exhaled sharply. “Putting on a show. Every time. You ever feel like that?”

Faked civility was par for the course in their industry, and friendships of convenience as well. Of course he understood that much. But the idea of fearing insincerity and conditional love in any and all relationships was something his mind refused to contemplate. In that context, Malcolm's repeated demand to know what Julius was getting out of their relationship made a sort of sense he did not want to understand. “No, can't say that I do,” Julius said slowly.

He flinched at Julius's admission, some secret hope clearly having been dashed. “Okay.” 

“Explain it to me,” he said quietly.

Malcolm took a deep breath and clenched his jaw, looking away into the surrounding woods.“You open yourself up, you're just setting yourself up to get fucked. Why would you want that to be publicly visible?”

“One wouldn't,” Julius said. He shook his head and added, “But I promise you that's not what's happening here.”

“I know,” Malcolm said quickly. He smiled tightly. “Just. Old habits, yeah?”

He could see the conversation was rattling him, something he hadn't intended to happen during an otherwise pleasant walk, and so he grew determined to switch gears. “As I said before,” Julius murmured against his lips, “at your own pace. Rather you think about something else now.”

Malcolm sighed into the kiss as Julius tightened his hold around his wrists; he gave no resistance when Julius wrapped his arms around him, pinning Malcolm's hands behind his own back. If anything, he simply relaxed further into Julius's embrace. “What should I think about?”

Julius brushed his mouth against his jaw, his neck, any spot of skin that struck his fancy as he said, “How when the weather changes, I'm going to bring you back out here and fuck you absolutely silly. Bend you right over the rail and have you in broad daylight. Would you like that?”

He was rewarded with a deep blush, an embarrassed squirm and an undeniable response pressed against his thigh. “Who are you?” Malcolm asked with a laugh. “What have you done with Lord Stick-up-his-arse?”

That man was gone, now that Julius knew what it was Malcolm enjoyed. And if he were being honest, he could have asked a similar question of Malcolm. He tightened his hold and pulled him closer. “Would you like him back?”

He shook his head, smirked like a cat discovering a plate of cream, relaxed even more. “Not really.”

“Then answer the question. Would you like me to take you here, some day? Debase you in front of God and all his creatures?”

“Yes. I--yes.”

“Good. Would you like to go back to the house now?”

“Yes.”

*

Julius had left Malcolm sprawled out on his bed, naked, asleep. His intent on the bridge--and during various stops along the way home, pushing him against trees, outbuildings, escaping into the gazebo and the greenhouse to momentarily, savagely possess the man--was to distract him, focus him on something positive and good until he could get him back in the house.

He'd almost given in inside the greenhouse, but his purpose had been to inevitably exhaust him, and for that he'd needed to get him into bed. There were flashes from the encounter that stayed with him: the feel of skin on skin as he kneeled behind Malcolm on the bed, holding him upright with one hand on his throat and the other stroking him roughly as he whispered pure filth into his ear before pushing him down. The mere fact of his inability to speak, his willingness to be wordlessly molded into whatever Julius wanted from him. The sight of Malcolm, on his knees and coming with a strange mix of desperation, surprise, shame, and gratitude on his face right as Julius gripped his hair and forced himself deeper into his mouth. Or the way he'd finally begun to struggle, the sensations too much, as Julius kept working him over, only to beg for him to continue when Julius had thought to stop, to beg for Julius to find his own completion rutting against Malcolm pinned beneath him. He'd wanted to struggle, Julius had realized, only so that he might find relief in the inevitable loss.

Overstimulated, kept uncertain and pushed to an edge--he'd been thoroughly worn out after, exactly as Julius had wanted him.

But though he had worked quite hard--and quite successfully--at distracting Malcolm, he found as he stood at the kitchen counter, chopping vegetables for lunch, that he himself lacked a strong enough distraction from his own concerns. The weight of Malcolm's confession on the bridge bore down on him. He would have to figure out a way to convince him off his sincerity without the use of words and promises. Moreover, he'd have to convince Malcolm he was not the only person who viewed him with unconditional adoration.

He put down the knife and leaned heavily against the counter, squeezing his eyes shut; no time for tears, he told himself. No time for his own stress. There was lunch to prepare and a plan to be formulated.

Later, his opening of the door was what finally roused Malcolm. A part of him wished he hadn't woken up so quickly; the split second vision of Malcolm curled up half on his side, half on his stomach, holding a pillow against him with his face buried in it, was a vision that did not last nearly long enough. He propped himself up as he blinked awake, slightly confused by the sunlight in the room. “Time is it?” he slurred, still half asleep.

“Half noon. You've been asleep two hours.” He waited for Malcolm to sit up before placing the tray down over him. “I've prepared a light repast for us.”

He blearily wiped at his face before looking down at the tray full of food. A small selection of meats for Julius, then satsumas, dried apricots and freshly sauteed vegetables for Malcolm. A selection of cheeses and some fresh bread he'd picked up in town for them both.

“This your master plan, then? Fuck me and feed me?” Malcolm nearly drained his glass of water and then picked a bit at the food in front of him. “Not that I'm complaining, mind.”

Julius crawled into the bed next to him. “I do prefer my lovers with a slight amount of padding. Makes it that much more enjoyable when attempting to take hold of them.”

“Yeah, by the way, I would never have guessed you'd be such a freak.” He bit into a tomato slice and added, “If I'd known that before, I would've had a hard time deciding whether to fuck you or blackmail you. Both, maybe.”

“I think I'll take that as a compliment,” he said. Once he put something in his mouth, he realized he'd been famished. A cube of cheese called to him; it was a new flavor, procured from a local farm that he hadn't tried before. Sweet and nutty, creamy and something he wished to share. “Open your mouth?”

Malcolm complied distractedly as he was in the middle of smearing marmalade on a slice of soft bread. As soon as he bit down on the cheese Julius had popped into his mouth, he inhaled sharply. “That's…very good,” he said, chewing experimentally. “Where did you find that?”

“It's local. Bought it at the market the other day.”

“Fuck London, I'm retiring here.”

“You are entirely too young to retire,” Julius chided.

“Yeah, well.” His expression turned pensive, morose, before he shut himself off. “That's out of my hands.”

“No it isn't, there's plenty of time for a second wind,” Julius said.

“I'd really prefer we don't careen towards blue sky bullshit over this,” he warned.

Julius bit back any reply he might have had; Malcolm had gone tense the last few moments, and something simmered in his eyes that Julius did not wish to further stoke. “New topic?”

“New topic,” Malcolm said, a note of relief in his voice. He continued to nibble at the food on the tray as he glanced around the room. “So how did you end up with this place? Family home?”

“From my mother's side of the family, yes,” he said. “She bequeathed it to me upon her passing.”

At that, Malcolm looked at him curiously. “She must have been young, I'm sorry.”

Though it had left a well of pain in his heart that had yet be filled, Julius acknowledged and dismissed his sympathy with a slight wave of his hand. “It was years ago. And it was sudden, no painful lead-up. At any rate, she'd wanted me to have something, in case father--well. She'd wanted me to have something.”

Malcolm was quiet for a moment; Julius became acutely aware of the warmth of his bare skin even through his jumper. “Dear old dad not that dear?”

Julius smiled down grimly at the slice of bread he'd been preparing. “Dear old dad,” Julius said, “has wanted nothing to do with me since I'd left for university. Mother tried to give me something then--an allowance, a stipend from her own funds--I refused. I had thought the inevitable strain on their relationship would only have caused grief for her, though I believe she was considering divorce at the time of her passing anyway. That's what my sister tells me.”

“Does this mean my Julius is a self made man?” he asked with some degree of admiration.

“A man of my upbringing could never rightfully call himself ‘self made,’ I don't think.” He took a bit of meat and cheese and added, “And making my own way only required hiding the deep, dark family secret for a few years. In other words, pretend as though I had not effectively been disowned until betraying the class through my political proclivities.”

“Jesus. I truly am sorry, Jules.”

“It's no matter. I grew comfortable with the notion very early.” He smiled tightly at Malcolm. “I think father knew, even before I knew myself, that I would never be the bright, shining first born son he'd hoped for. In any way.”

“That's still not okay,” Malcolm said. “You know that, yeah?”

He shook his head, took a deep cleansing breath. “It's not, but it has been years, and I am an adult who has accepted that parents can be as flawed as anyone. And he was only…he was very shouty. Derisive. Perhaps at times, he would-” He would use honesty as a weapon, Julius recalled, taking confessions of fears and insecurities and turning them into sharp little knives. The words died thick in his throat. “But it was only ever verbal. Tantrums, doors slamming. He never hit, really.”

He could feel Malcolm's eyes on him, quietly concerned. Then he felt a hand on his cheek, turning him to face Malcolm and look him in the eye.

“No more being shouty,” he said, kissing him softly.

Something he had not realized he'd held inside his heart crumbled, leaving a wash of warmth to flood him. The notion that there would be no more angry voices ringing off the walls of this house was nearly unfathomable. But he laughed a little in surprise and asked, “Are you even capable of that?”

“Yes.”

Sincerity, then. Real, matter of fact sincerity, he realized, and it made his breath catch. He leaned his head against Malcolm's shoulder, slid his hand over his belly. Kissed his collarbone as Malcolm continued to eat. “Who are you,” he said, “and what have you done with Malcolm Tucker.”

He laughed quietly, kissed him on the forehead, said, “I'd ask if you'd like him back, but I think it's best he stay the fuck away.”

Julius was not quite used to this Malcolm; this was a hidden, secret self, an even deeper version of a man who had meticulously kept even his public persona out of view for years. He wondered what else Malcolm might have been under all that protective armor--what else he might be privileged enough to witness. For now, he was happy that he was willing to show even this side of himself. “Hmm,” he said, “I am actually beginning to think he's been here all along.”

Malcolm elbowed him good naturedly and rolled his eyes. “Sentimental bastard.”

“I accept my guilt,” he said. He sat up and looked at Malcolm, curious. “You called me ‘your’ Julius.”

Malcolm only glared at him in response, though there was no heat in the look. “Should've known you'd pick up on that.”

“I am your sentimental bastard,” he said, sighing in mock defeat. “And you're my Malcolm.” He felt the muscles of Malcolm's stomach tighten suddenly, and when he pulled back, there was a wariness in his eyes.

“Don't say that,” he said quietly. The wariness turned into something else; guilt, frustration, distraction. He picked a bit at what little was remaining on the tray. “Sorry.”

Julius crushed the disappointed ache in his heart and deliberately kept his face warm and open. “No, I said take things at your pace, and I meant it,” he said. “I am a very patient man.”

“Not fair though, is it,” Malcolm said. “Want to be faster. You shouldn't have to be patient over this.”

Julius couldn't help but sigh as he leaned back against the headboard. He thought for a moment, trying to come up with some way to assure Malcolm without him feeling patronized. As he scoured his memories, he came up with an idea he hoped might work. “Do you recall, when you were first brought to my doorstep, my attempts to make you spend time with me?”

“Yeah, ‘course. You were in-fucking-credibly annoying, how could I forget?”

“Do you think it was fair of me to push you like that?” His silence was the only answer Julius needed, and it was an answer with which he wholeheartedly agreed. The entire affair had been awkward, unnerving in retrospect, all due to his not paying enough attention to the cues Malcolm had been giving him. He had wanted Julius's companionship, but on his terms rather than Julius's, given the natural imbalance of power between them. But Julius had stumbled, mismanaged it and he still felt guilty.

“You were trying your best,” Malcolm said eventually.

“As are you, clearly,” he said. “So if you are willing to move past my earlier missteps, I can be patient with you now. And if it's a question of fairness, if you think your pace is unfairly slow--something with which I do not agree, mind you--then we are even with each other.”

Malcolm said nothing, clenching his jaw as he stared resolutely forward. With another sigh, Julius got up, took the tray and placed it on the desk. Then he climbed back in next to Malcolm and pulled him close, stroking his back slowly as he settled in. “It will happen when it happens,” he murmured. 

“Push me to make it happen quicker,” Malcolm said. “Just not too hard, that's all.”

Julius nodded, secretly relieved that Malcolm was asking for this. “Perhaps we could come up with a term you could say, if I ever overstep my bounds.”

Malcolm thought for a bit. “Arse eating skidmark,” he mumbled against Julius's chest.

“...Perhaps we could come up with something safe for public use. And shorter.”

“Cunt.”

“Malcolm,” he warned.

“This conversation’s too serious,” he said, trying to sit up; Julius pulled him right back down again. There was a strong note of whining in his voice, but Julius thought it might have been hiding something else.

“Come up with a word and we can end it.”

He huffed in annoyance but squeezed his eyes shut and whispered, “Blue.”

“Blue,” Julius repeated, gratified to have a clear signal. 

Still, a part of him was curious about the word choice; it must have been evident somehow, as Malcolm looked up at him and said, “Used red with someone else, don't want to use it again. Plus, you looked good in that blue jumper last night.”

He grinned at the unexpected compliment. “Really? You like me in blue?”

“Yeah.” Malcolm had his own grin in response, clearly relieved to have moved away from heavier topics. “What do you like me in?”

Julius pointedly scanned his bare skin, looked Malcolm in the eyes and cocked an eyebrow.

“Oh is that why I'm naked? Thought I was just being lazy.”

“I like the ease of access,” Julius said. His hands wandered down to the backs of his thighs, pulling his legs apart as though to prove a point.

“You just want me naked, collared and cuffed, don't you,” Malcolm said with mock defeat.

But the image he'd painted made Julius’s mind grind to a halt. Malcolm in cuffs--Malcolm in a collar--strong black leather against his pale skin, was a scene he'd never thought of until now. He exhaled sharply, some previously dark part of his brain lighting up as his hands dug into Malcolm's flesh. All of a sudden, he felt less like Julius Nicholson, more like some single-minded beast who wished to do all sorts of nameless, graceless things to Malcolm.

He rolled them over so Malcolm was under him, soaking in the surprised look on Malcolm's face before nipping at his neck and then making his way further down. “Jules? Julius, three times in a twenty four hour span-”

“Shut up.”

“Yes sir.”

*

He rubbed at his lower back and grimaced slightly. Malcolm had, perhaps, been correct in his assessment that a third go of things in such a short time frame might have been one time too many. But the pleading, the eagerness to do right--the sharp hiss of pain, once, before he had stretched him enough with his fingers--the apology for being so tight. The feel of him around Julius's cock had been exquisite, as had been the way he’d relaxed into a blissful state as Julius fucked him open and told him just how much he wanted to tie him down and use him, until he’d lay there, belly down with his arms folded under him, one hand lightly gripping the pillow while the fingers of his other hand had made their way to his mouth, his eyes shut and his lips parted as he had drifted, mentally, to God knew where. 

Julius grimaced again and tried to stretch his spine a bit, but it was worth it. Poor Malcolm was sleeping again next to him, soundly and unwakeable; after a quick stumble to the washroom to clean up, he’d collapsed in nearly in the same position he'd been in when Julius had finally pulled out. Julius smiled down at him fondly and ran his hands through his hair; not only did Malcolm not wake at the touch, he simply moved closer in his sleep to meet Julius's warmth.

There was no way he could have imagined such a thing when they'd been working together, but now he found he could no longer imagine his life without it. How quickly that had happened should have frightened him.

Instead, he curled himself around Malcolm and decided it was time for a kip.

When he woke up, the sun was low in the sky, and his bed was empty. Wiping his face, he stumbled out and walked out to the hall. “Malcolm?” he called.

“Kitchen.”

He made his way to the kitchen to find Malcolm--sadly, clothed--standing over the stove. “What are you making?” Julius wondered.

“Meth.” Malcolm turned to face him briefly, crunching on some green beans; he could not chalk up the brightness in his eyes to wishful thinking. Julius was neither ignorant enough nor naive enough to think a bit of rough foolishness was enough to fully resolve all the problems Malcolm might have been facing, but he still couldn't help but feel some relief from the sight before him. “Making dinner, you wankstain.”

“Didn't I just feed you?”

“Yes, and then you shagged my brains out. Pardon me for being hungry, anyway, come here and taste this.”

“Oh, now you're giving the orders,” he said, but he ambled over and opened his mouth for whatever it was Malcolm was preparing. “That is good. When did you have time to go out to the market?”

“Didn't, this is all from your kitchen. Decided to repay you.”

He slipped his arms around Malcolm's waist. “Is everything quid pro quo with you?”

“Fuck off, it was a joke,” he said, smiling as though to disarm the words some. “Go set the table.”

Julius kissed him and went to do as he was told. He turned back to ask a question, but it was lost when he saw Malcolm's profile. A brief flash of desperation, thinly disguised panic at a nail having been hit directly on the head, as he tried to concentrate on the pan in front of him. 

He put it aside and went to grab the dishes. Though the sudden onset of concern was gnawing its way through him, he knew better than to try and confront it head on. Not if it would make Malcolm think he'd failed.

He'd bring it up later, somehow, and indirectly. For now, he'd take what Malcolm was offering him, and give him the victory he sought.

*

After dinner, he retreated to the observatory; after spending almost every waking moment together, they needed a break. Better to take the initiative now, he thought, than wait until annoyance set it later.

Besides, at some point he'd have to actually write this book he'd promised.

Legal pad in hand, leaning back into the overstuffed armchair he'd designated as his writing chair, he poised his pen over the paper and waited. It was exactly like this that Malcolm found him some time later, though Julius was unsure of just how long it had been.

“Dinner that bad?” Malcolm asked; there was a sparkle in his eyes that told Julius he knew that hadn't been the case. He was snacking on something on his hand. Almonds, Julius realized, as he leaned against the door jamb and popped them into his mouth one by one.

“Attempting to write,” he said with a sigh. He waved Malcolm over to him, put his pad and pen on the side table. 

Malcolm duly sauntered over, but he said, “You're not planning on bending me over that chair, are you? The spirit may be willing, but I don’t think the body can take another round of your biscuit-fueled, arse breaching fuck-machine rampage. Not that I’m complaining.”

“No, I-” He felt the heat in his cheeks, sure that color was flooding his face as he fumbled with his glasses, pretending to clean them. “Well, that--I mean, truly, there--which is to say, I--just, just, that is--er, ‘biscuit-fueled?’”

“Would you like me to bring you some biscuits?” Malcolm asked with a smirk.

Julius scowled and grabbed some almonds out of Malcolm’s palm before he could be stopped. “Wicked man,” he mumbled. Then: “Not complaining even a little bit?”

“Not one bit.” He nodded at the recently discarded legal pad. “What’ve you got?”

“Less than I wish,” Julius said.

Malcolm picked it up with his free hand and scanned the top page, frowning. “Just notes? And only from--this was, what, Fleming’s first reign of terror?”

Cringing, he said, “I’ve got another notepad filled elsewhere. Though, yes, generally, it’s all from that era.”

He popped a few more almonds into his mouth, moved to the window, cocked his hip and leaned against the sill. “Right. Don’t take this the wrong way, but how the fuck did you manage to get a book deal without even the barest hint of a book?”

Again he felt the heat rising under his skin, but this time for far less pleasant reasons. “A friend of a friend,” he said weakly. Trading on access to power and networks was hardly a new thing for him, yet somehow now he found it more than just mildly distasteful. “I do have a month or so yet to give them a progress report.”

Malcolm, however, just nodded as though it was nothing, dumped the remaining almonds into his mouth, and started flipping through the notepad. “Why not begin at the beginning?”

“Easier said than done.”

“Okay. Then make up a beginning, and start there. And not with the minge-faced sack of wank’s demise, much as I love reading about it.”

The idea was a logical one, yet somehow one that Julius struggled to grasp. He thought it through as though pushing through a dense fog, sighed, and took the notepad back from Malcolm. “Perhaps tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow we make a schedule for you,” Malcolm said. “You’ve got to write something at some point, yeah?”

He smiled tightly, willing tomorrow’s conversation to be rescheduled for the tenth of never. “Yeah.” He dropped the pad onto the table beside him, took Malcolm’s hand and pulled him closer. “Shall we find some other distraction for the remainder of the evening? And--do excuse me for the presumption--would you like some help moving some of your personal effects into my room before we turn in for the night?”

“Long as that distraction doesn’t involve murder by cock,” Malcolm said with a smirk.

Julius ducked his head bashfully, resting momentarily against Malcolm’s belly. “Do excuse that behavior as well, if you could. I have simply never in my wildest fantasies imagined you in my bed, much less staying after the fact.” He focused on Malcolm’s hands in his own, strong, large, elegant and nimble, recalled the feel of them against other parts of him. “That you are here excites me in more ways than one, though, ah, I suppose that is the most obvious way.”

“Why do you always talk like such a twat?” There was a smile in Malcolm’s voice, so clear that Julius knew he would see it even before he looked up at him. He ran a hand over Julius’s scalp and said, “A waxed twat, even.”

“Shaved, surely,” Julius protested with a smile of his own. “And it’s a nervous habit, I suppose. Don the armor of language when I’m feeling suitably vulnerable.”

“Fair enough.” Malcolm took hold of both of his hands and stepped back, tugging him up. “But fuck talking for now, right? Come to bed.”

Nothing sounded better in the moment, so Julius obliged.


	8. Evergreens

He awoke early, well before he liked; the shifting of the mattress was what did it. Julius had always been something of a light sleeper when sharing his bed, so attuned to his partners’ moods and needs that he would rise with them no matter when he had gone to bed himself. In this moment, the sun was barely making its presence known, rising from its own slumber, sleepily stretching its light over the horizon and in through the curtains.

Malcolm had sat up before Julius could open his eyes. At first, he thought perhaps he’d simply woken early, as he had the previous day, and was in the midst of either momentarily leaving or returning to bed. But as Julius yawned and blinked slightly more awake, something about Malcolm’s posture began to seem odd to him. He had his back to Julius, the curve of his spine and the drop of his head giving away the weight he seemed to feel on his shoulders. His hands were braced on the edge of the bed as though he were preparing to stand, his feet on the ground, but he seemed paralyzed in how still he was.

“Malcolm?” he murmured.

He startled, seemingly surprised to learn that he had not been alone in his contemplation. Turning slightly, he smiled a closed-mouth smile and said, “Cramp. Sorry.”

Nothing about the claim seemed believable, but Julius nodded and allowed himself to be shifted onto his back as Malcolm slid back down under the covers beside him. “All right now?” he asked, playing along.

“Mmhm. Didn’t mean to wake you.” 

They ended up together, Julius on his side with Malcolm curled behind him, pressing a kiss against the back of his neck. The luxury of stubble brushing against his skin, the early hour, and the warmth and weight of another human being so close to him conspired against his worry, sending him tumbling back down into oblivion. When he woke back up, it wasn’t the sun that did it; the sun hadn’t seemed to make it very far past its initial weak appearance, and instead he awoke to the sound of rain pattering against the window and roof, heavy and steady and all too chilly. 

In spite of his inability to sleep through movement, Malcolm had managed to slip out at some point during the early morning. Julius inhaled deeply, and became aware of the scent of something cooking. Or, rather, cooked; moments after he sat up in bed, he watched as Malcolm walked back in carrying a tray piled high with a hot breakfast for the both of them.

“Do I trust a vegetarian to know how to scramble eggs?” he asked as he sat up.

“Fuck you,” Malcolm said, kissing him and placing the tray over his lap. “And anyway, it’s a tofu scramble. Sneaked it into your kitchen when you weren’t looking.”

Julius eyed it warily as Malcolm got back in beside him. “What else did you sneak into this?”

“Arsenic. Enjoy, darling.”

A year ago, he might have nervously dropped his fork. Even a few short months ago, he might have. This morning, Julius took the words with an amused hum and dug in. He couldn’t say that it tasted anything like eggs, but neither could he say it was a poor breakfast. Quite the contrary--he inhaled sharply, his eyes fluttering shut involuntarily as he savored the taste, the feel, the warmth of it. 

When he opened them again, he saw Malcolm holding his mobile, swiping through something and tapping out a response; his face had gone soft, distracted, with the corners of his mouth twitching up into a sweet little smile as his eyes flicked over the screen. Then he snapped his gaze to Julius, dropping his phone down onto the bed and giving him his full attention. “How do you like it?”

“Bloody brilliant,” Julius said, forgetting his manners and shoveling more into his mouth. “Where’s yours?”

Malcolm picked a second fork up off the tray and speared his own mouthful. Scandalized, Julius dragged the plate away and glared at him. “Chef’s prerogative,” Malcolm said, reaching for more.

“Chef’s preparing his own serving and leaving mine alone,” Julius countered, trying in vain to bat Malcolm’s hand away. 

“Oh, come on, there’s enough there for two.”

Julius couldn’t miss the mischievous sparkle in his eyes, even as he frowned and tried to bring the plate closer. With a sigh, he gave in and gave up, silently agreeing to share. “If you insist,” he said, taking on the role of the long-suffering, sacrificing partner, even as he knew enough to be grateful for the morning Malcolm was giving him.

Malcolm kissed his cheek before leaning up against him. It might have been easier to place the tray between them, but Julius had to admit he preferred the lack of distance. “After this,” Malcolm said, “we start putting together a schedule for you, yeah?”

“I was rather thinking we could leave town for a few hours and get a Christmas tree.”

Malcolm raised an eyebrow. “Little early for it.”

“It’s the tenth of December,” he said. “My family always puts a tree up today.”

He raised both eyebrows at that, but looked fairly accepting. “Guess we’re going Christmas tree shopping,” he said, as he continued to eat what Julius believed was his own well-earned breakfast. “But after. Tonight, as soon as we’ve decorated it. A schedule is being made.”

It didn’t occur to Julius until they were cleaning up that not only had he shared the knowledge of this family tradition with Malcolm, but that Malcolm had so casually slid into being a part of said tradition.

It didn’t occur to him until they were driving back from the tree farm, tree firmly attached to the car roof and cheeks rosy from the cold, that Julius had not had another soul to partake in the tradition at the country home for some years. His sister lived elsewhere, and of course she and her own family put up their tree; Mrs. Trumbull had the habit of inviting him into her home to help with her decorations, along with some of the other people from town she had semi adopted over the years, but she had rarely, if ever, been up to his home for the purpose of decorating. And to be honest, most years he’d remained in London, partaking in the sort of celebrations that were more networking than anything else. He had not always had the leisure of allowing the Christmas season to mean much to him.

He spared Malcolm a glance as they drove back to the house; if the man had any inkling of what was going through Julius’s mind, he didn’t show it. He was too intent on taking in the view of the countryside as they drove, drawn to the wild, golden-brown fields and distant hillsides, to the bare trees and the pines that were still lightly frosted with the snow that the early morning rain had not had a chance to wash away. It took work for Julius to keep his eyes on the road. He had only seen such an expression on Malcolm’s face once before, when they had first gotten to the house and had only been there for a short time, perhaps a week or two at the most. Fireworks had lit up the night sky, as they had in early November for as long as he could remember, and from his house he’d always been able to see it; Malcolm had watched from the sitting room window, entranced and lost in the spectacle.

Julius hadn’t been nearly as welcome a presence then. He’d mentioned the bonfire and festivities in passing, but Malcolm had turned down the opportunity to go into town with nothing more than a glare. Not wanting to go on his own and leave Malcolm alone, he’d opted to stay in with a book or two, and he’d caught the sight by accident. He found himself wishing for next November, suddenly, the urge growing to an almost absurd level as he drove.

“So,” Malcolm said, “is that the same tree farm that the Nicholson family has been going to ever since you were nothing but a wee spot of jizz?”

Julius withheld a smile and said, “My father used to have a tree delivered, by a nursery that chose it for him. I had kept up the tradition, until I remembered I’d always felt it was rather cold and dismal, having someone else pick the tree out for you like that.”

“Am I to understand this is Julius taking an independent stand?”

“This is Julius doing something he enjoys instead of sticking to somewhat nonsensical ancestral ways,” he said. Before long, he was pulling up to the house, and the two of them managed to get the tree inside with ease.

If anyone had told him last year that he would be spending a day trimming and decorating a Christmas tree with the devil incarnate, the once and future terror of Whitehall, he would have directed them to the nearest asylum and followed them in himself. Yet here he was in this unreal and baffling display of domesticity, a dream that he feared waking from. By the time they were finished, the observatory smelled strongly of pine, and the winter sun was low in the sky. And as he watched Malcolm place baubles and bulbs just so on the tree, he found it difficult to recall the time when he would have been seen as that devil, that terror. There was nothing aggressive, arrogant or cold-hearted about the man in front of him, with brightly colored faery lights casting their glow against his face and eyes; not for the first time, he found it a jarring, but not unwelcome, realization.

He picked up an ornament to hang, self-aware suddenly and wondering if Malcolm still saw him as the semi-scheming fool he’d tried to be one too many times. It wasn’t a thought he wanted to linger on. Julius cleared his throat and said, “I don’t usually hold a Christmas dinner here, you know.”

Malcolm glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Oh?”

“Usually Mrs. Trumbull takes in her, ah, misfits,” he said with a brief smile. “It’s really quite nice, if you’d like to come this year I’m sure-”

“I’d like to go to my mam’s,” Malcolm said abruptly. “My sister and her kid’s’ll be there--I haven't seen them in a while, I thought maybe this year…”

“Oh.” He could kick himself for assuming that Malcolm would have had no plans for Christmas, or that he would want to spend the holidays here even if he hadn’t had plans. “Of course, yes, when. That is, when would you be leaving?”

“Was thinking a few days before Christmas,” he said. “Spend the week, come back just after New Year’s.” He turned to face Julius and asked, “That’d be fine, right?”

“Of course it’d be fine, I’d hardly stop you from seeing your own family,” Julius said, with an incredulous laugh. A sudden distortion twisted inside of him, and he recalled the evening before, Malcolm standing at the stove, hiding a cringe about a throwaway joke. How quickly, really, the change in their relationship had happened, and how it had been at his instigation rather than Malcolm’s. And now, asking if it was all right to leave and see his own mother. There was a certain tension in Malcolm’s expression now that ate at him, leaving a sense of dread deep inside him. “It’s not like you owe me your presence.”

“Thanks.” He smiled crookedly, awkwardly. “Sorry if you had other plans, I guess I could’ve said something earlier.”

“No, it’s fine.” He fiddled aimlessly with another ornament. “I should have asked first. It was presumptuous of me.”

Malcolm hung a red globe on the tree and glanced at him with furrowed brows. “You all right?”

“I’m fine. It’s just--you don’t owe me anything. At all. You don’t need to do anything to repay-”

“Stop gibbering,” Malcolm said. He turned to him fully now, his face creased with a frown that threatened to turn into a glare. “What are you talking about?”

“I’d only like to make myself perfectly clear,” Julius said; he could both feel his speech picking up speed, and his inability to slow it down. “That you should not feel beholden to me in any way, and that I do not wish for you to think that-” He somehow managed to stop himself before he dug himself any deeper, and risked looking at Malcolm again.

For a moment, Malcolm looked as angry as he’d ever seen him; then, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and calmed himself so visibly that Julius couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Quietly, he asked, “You think that I see all of this is some kind of payback? Like some kind of--arrangement between-” 

It was Malcolm’s turn to cut off the sentence before it went too far, his body tense and stiff, his gaze on anything other than Julius; though he felt ill from fear that the change in their relationship was not as amenable to Malcolm as he’d thought, Julius watched in wonder as Malcolm collected himself and kept himself calm. “I just want you to know, if you have any thought that I have provided anything, there is no cost to it.”

“Why would you think that I’d think there was?” His tone was measured, steady, but Julius could swear he could hear an impending explosion behind his words. “That this is, somehow, transactional--that it’s only because of what you’ve, what, provided?”

“I don’t mean it like that,” he said; he felt suddenly weak and lightheaded, almost dizzy. “I mean, I hope that I have not unduly pressured you, or made you feel as though your company was mine to take, rather than yours to give.”

Malcolm’s eyes searched his face for some kind of sign or message, he wasn’t quite sure what. But it must have been found, because the wariness was soon banished, replaced by something approaching compassion, even understanding. It wasn’t a completely easy banishment; Julius could see Malcolm’s mind at work, deliberately unwinding the tension in his body and forcing himself to look at the situation from a different angle. But it was banished nonetheless, and the concern which replaced it was as real a thing as he’d ever seen. “You’re really worried about this,” Malcolm said.

He twisted the ornament’s string around his finger, watched the skin go red before he untangled it and put the thing on his desk. “I think I’d be stupid not to,” he said quietly.

A moment of contemplation; and then, Malcolm’s shoulders dropped, his whole frame seemed to deflate, and he took a step towards Julius. “No. Hey. No.” He reached up to cup Julius’s face in his hands. “You,” Malcolm said, his voice soft and warm, “are miraculously stupid. Just not how you think.”

“Please don’t mock me, Malcolm.”

“I’m going to mock you because you’ve added two and two and come up with the capital of Albania,” he continued. He patted Julius’s cheek, smiled crookedly again, but in a way that seemed so much more comfortable than before. “I’m not good at giving two fucks about someone else’s feelings, that’s all. Get the timing of things all wrong. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to be here.” 

He swallowed, tugged absently on the hem of Malcolm’s jumper. “You’re not just--you don’t feel like I’m pressuring you into anything?”

“I’m actually quite enjoying myself lately,” Malcolm said. “Dunno why. Your cock’s pretty magical, that might be it.”

In spite of himself, Julius could feel a smile tugging at his lips. “Please be serious with me.”

“I am being serious, you could sell that thing. Or no, the rest of you’d have to come with it, I’m not okay with that.” Malcolm seemed content at getting a small laugh out of him, and pulled him into a quick hug. “I’m not very good at this, but don’t doubt that this is real, you stuffy, posh, insecure bampot.”

Julius looked down, suddenly finding the rug under his slippers very interesting. “So I’m your stuffy, posh, insecure bampot?”

Malcolm gave him a lingering kiss. “Don’t you forget it.”

*

There was a certain sort of gentleness that Julius hadn’t known existed.

Of course he had known kindness, compassion and care--at the very least, Mrs. Trumbull and Mr. Trumbull had shown him that, and his own mother had provided to the extent that she could. But there was an intimate tenderness that came with the feeling of enveloping, unfaltering protection that seemed new to him. 

In the nights ahead of Christmas, he was given affirmation he hadn’t known how to ask for; held and made to come undone by a man he hadn’t known could give such an affirmation, or at least who did not give them so easily, he found himself falling deeper into something he was afraid to name with every moment. Even the push to write, to outline and revisit notes and diaries he’d ignored for too long, came with a sense that Malcolm was somehow in his corner.

To what extent, he hadn’t been sure, until he’d seen Malcolm pacing outside one morning, his phone to his ear. He couldn’t make out what was being said, but the snarl on his face and the aggressive line of his body had been so reminiscent of the Malcolm of old that he had found himself startled to remember that this wasn’t actually a completely different person. Clouds of his breath in the bitter air had punctuated some kind of threat half shouted into his phone, and the smile that had appeared before he’d hung up had been colder than the winter’s day itself.

“What was that all about?” Julius had asked when he’d come back in.

Malcolm had looked at him with a face as calm and open as the sea on a still night, and had said, “Your publisher was kind enough to give you an extension.” He’d kissed his cheek, kicked his boots off, and headed into the kitchen for a cup of tea.

There were nights where Julius would lay awake, listening to the sounds of Malcolm breathing and sleeping beside him, feeling the weight of his touch against his chest, or his arm, or wherever Malcolm had last rested his hand before falling asleep. He told himself he stayed up to ensure that Malcolm did, in fact, fall asleep--the man sometimes seemed to be unable to let his mind rest and turn off with a sense of regularity and predictability. 

Truthfully, he willed himself to stay awake because he had no wish to miss out on a single moment of being conscious of Malcolm’s presence next to him. As Christmas approached, he couldn’t help but feel anxious over the impending departure, even though he knew Malcolm would be back soon enough. It must have been obvious, but to his credit, Malcolm made no comment, and even humored Julius’s requests for him to be in the observatory more often while he wrote. A not-insubstantial part of him hoped that Malcolm felt the same as he did, and also wanted to be together as much as possible before he had to go. But even if that weren’t the case, the mere fact that he readily agreed to spend his free time reading where Julius could see him was enough.

The morning of Malcolm’s last day came too quickly for his tastes. The bedroom took on almost a dreamlike state with the early morning sunlight drifting in like a sigh, and he woke up to find Malcolm on his side with one arm curled under his head, watching him, contemplative. “Morning,” Julius said, drowsy and unsure of Malcolm’s attention.

“Morning,” said Malcolm. “Could I ask you something?”

He shifted a little so that he could face him fully. “Of course.”

Frowning in thought, Malcolm said, “I asked you once, if you ever felt like. Like you’re only worth what you can give. And you said no. But you do feel like that, right? And not just on that one night, when we got the tree?”

Julius closed his eyes, and tried to think of ways to steer the conversation. “I believe everyone probably feels like that on occasion. It’s not a good feeling, but-”

“I was always better at this than you,” Malcolm said. “Don’t dodge the question. You do, don’t you?”

The idea of fearing insincerity and conditional love was still something his mind refused to contemplate; he could feel a ball of tension growing in his chest every moment that he didn’t respond. “We should talk of something else.”

“Jules-”

“Blue. Malcolm, blue.”

He opened his eyes to see Malcolm still looking at him, his frown tinged with sadness, empathy, and an anger that wasn’t aimed at him at all. “All right,” he said softly. “Interrogation over.”

“It’s just, it’s your last day with me,” he said. “I don’t want it to be...overshadowed.”

Malcolm slid his arms around him and kissed his forehead. “No need for explanations, yeah? At your own pace.”

Curled up with his head against Malcolm’s chest, he said, “I didn’t get you anything for Christmas, you know.” He couldn’t see Malcolm’s face, but a second later he could feel him chuckling.

“Idiot,” Malcolm said.

“Your idiot?”

“Obviously.” Malcolm barely moved, just enough to get comfortable, one hand stroking Julius’s back. “If it helps, I didn’t get you anything either.”

“I’m shocked and dismayed,” he deadpanned. “Not even a lump of coal for my stocking?”

“I’ll be sure to kill a fieldmouse and drop it at your doorstep before I leave.” He sighed. “So tell me what you want to talk about.”

He didn’t really want to talk about anything at all; he was content doing nothing but feeling the cotton of Malcolm’s undershirt against his cheek, breathing in his scent, hearing his heartbeat. But he didn’t think Malcolm would be fully on board with that level of silence, so he said, “Tell me about your mum. Your whole family, if you like.”

Julius could feel Malcolm smiling against him, and he imagined it must have been a soft, sweet expression. “She’s fire personified,” he said. “She’d like you. My da would’ve too. He wouldn’t have liked your money, but he would’ve liked you.”

“You sound quite fond of them,” Julius said.

“They’re good people, yeah? No reason not to be fond of them.”

“I suppose,” Julius said with a sigh, “I’d always imagined you’d been borne from some murky loch somewhere, a fully formed sort of New Labour devil.”

Malcolm laughed, sharp and bright. “Oh, no. Sorry to burst your wee bubble of piss and fear, but no, my family’s lovely. Sister’s a teacher, like our mam. Da was a minister with the kirk.”

At this, Julius leaned back just enough to see Malcolm’s face. “A man of the cloth? Did you ever have any inclination to follow his lead?”

“Nah. Got a taste for journalism early.” A wistful look came over him as he added, “The both of them were very big on public service, though. The best thing a Tucker could do was help those who were less fortunate.”

Something shuttered behind Malcolm’s eyes; his body radiated discomfort suddenly, and he rolled onto his back, leaving Julius cold except for Malcolm’s hand in his. Julius raised their clasped hands to his lips and kissed him softly. “Are you all right?”

Malcolm shook his head dismissively and took a deep, cleansing breath. “Yeah, fine. Just remembering something you’d asked a while ago, when you wanted to know little Malc’s childhood ambitions.” He looked at Julius with a tight smile. “That was it. Wanted to help.”

There were any number of things Julius wanted to tell him in that moment. A declaration of love, a statement that he had helped in so many ways. But he didn’t think anything else would come off quite right, or be fully accepted, so he settled on, “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Malcolm said, reaching over to kiss him. “You didn’t want today to be overshadowed, right? So no overshadowing.” He settled down against Julius before propping himself back up, elbows on the bed. “The sky’s not allowed to be gray, the bitter wind’s not allowed to blow, and we’re not doing anything to get you even a little teary-eyed.”

Warmed throughout from more than just the body heat of the man above him, Julius asked, “Who are you?”

“I’ll be fucked if I know,” he murmured, before leaning down for another kiss.

*

In spite of his best efforts, the day ended and a new one began. Brunch with Mrs. Trumbull had gone beyond expectations, the walk through snowy paths after served to whet both of their appetites for the cozy evening in front of the fireplace. Malcolm had even granted him a reprieve from writing on that final day; truthfully, in the ten days since Malcolm had announced he was spending Christmas elsewhere, Julius had managed to get more work done than he’d thought possible, to the point that Malcolm had threatened him with a certain unique blend of castration and defenestration if he did not continue to make headway through New Year’s.

In spite of everything, Julius had felt compelled to take the threat at face value.

The ride to the station the next town over--Julius wished he could prolong the journey, but unfortunately this time Malcolm had a flight to catch to Glasgow. Missing this train was not an option. So instead, he decided to make his way to the platform with him, intent on standing there as long as possible before the train had to leave.

“You’ll call once you land?” Julius asked.

Malcolm stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets against the chill. “Yes, mother.”

Julius raised an eyebrow. “I should hope your relationship with your mother is in no way similar to your relationship with me.”

Malcolm grinned, throwing his head back in a silent laugh. “Thanks for burning that thought into my brain.”

“It’s my gift to you,” Julius said. “Since I didn’t get you anything else.”

“Yeah.” Malcolm regarded him for a long moment; standing there with his satchel slung across his body and his suitcase beside him, the workings of his mind were something of a mystery to Julius. He found he couldn’t read Malcolm’s face, though the fact that Malcolm was still smiling, his gaze softer than Julius had thought possible until recently, gave him some comfort.

“Can I say that I’ll miss you?” Julius asked.

“Soppier than a sponge in a pail full of piss,” Malcolm said. He glanced up at the platform clock and added, “I should probably get on. It’ll be leaving soon.”

Julius nodded, clasped his hands behind his back. “Of course.”

Malcolm took a look at the train, hesitated for a moment so brief that anyone other than Julius might have missed it, and then leaned in, his hand on Julius’s side, to kiss his cheek. “See you in a couple of weeks, Jules,” he said, and then he was gone.

If Julius stood there a moment longer than necessary, if he felt the warmth of Malcolm’s lips on his skin for a moment longer than should have been possible in the frigid early morning, if he spent a moment longer thinking about the seemingly casual goodbye than what was warranted, perhaps, he thought, he could be forgiven. It was only after Malcolm had boarded the train that Julius even became aware that there had been others peering out of the train windows, others standing on the platform or making their way around the two of them.

Julius had sent him off having given him a fresh haircut the night before, and a shave early this morning; Malcolm had left him with an unstated promise that what they had was something that existed outside of the confines of Julius’s estate.

The drive home was unsettling, the quiet tugging at his heart in ways he tried to ignore. The house was too empty; the twin sets of dishes in the sink from breakfast served as a reminder that he was now alone, for the first time in months. With nothing else to do besides think too much about that, he began to clean up. First the dishes, the kitchen, then the dining and sitting rooms; his office was a more creative mess that he didn’t dare touch for fear that it would somehow impact his ability to write, but by noon he was stripping the bedding in his room to wash.

He stopped short of going into Malcolm’s room. While he hadn’t slept there for some time, Julius knew that Malcolm would retreat into his room for some privacy during the day. Even after everything--or perhaps because of everything--that had happened since the last time he’d looked into the room, he couldn’t bring himself to open the door now without Malcolm knowing.

If he examined his motives too closely, he might not have liked what he’d find, so without dwelling too much he pulled out his mobile and texted Malcolm. “Cleaning house. Ok to clean your room?”

It only took a minute for Malcolm to reply, “if u want 2 sniff my jock could’ve just asked directly. Yes ok. xoxo.”

To his credit, Julius managed not to cringe too much as he put his phone away. He pushed the door open, and began to strip the bed; first, he had to move a few of Malcolm’s sketches out of the way, and so he carefully picked them up by the edges to avoid smudging them and took them to the desk.

He hadn’t meant to notice anything, of course, but some things are unavoidable when decluttering. A few studies of flowers and trees, an outbuilding or two. He recognized the sketch Malcolm had been working on the first time he’d found him in the greenhouse, confirmed by the date scratched in the corner of the sheet. Another, of a landscape with the village on the horizon--the date, again, recognizable and familiar to him as the day he found Malcolm on the heath so long ago. One, possibly the oldest of the set, from when they were still at the London house, of a collection of curios on a shelf.

It was with that mind, having been lulled into a sense of mundanity and ritual, that he picked up a sheaf of loose sketches with figure drawings. The images on the top were at first unfamiliar, but something about them gnawed at him, made him flip through the pages; the second sheet held more of the still life studies, but the third sheet, the third, with a date closer to their arrival in the village than to Malcolm’s departure-

The third was, undoubtedly, a study of Julius himself.

It was rough, obviously a practice sketch, but recognizably his own face. Almost instinctively, he kept rifling through the pages. Between the expected flowers and landscapes, he found himself again, with a date more recent and a sketch that seemed more detailed. He sat heavily at the foot of the bed, and even though a part of him knew he shouldn’t look further, he pulled another sheaf of papers close, and began to thumb through them. 

He kept appearing. The settings and stagings varied--one page was crammed with full body sketches in the kitchen, another one filled with a single study of him deep in thought as he wrote, longhand, on a notepad. Another simply had an assembly of parts, a pair of hands holding a mug of cocoa, his eyes behind his glasses, the shape of him as he sat by the fireplace. As the dates grew closer and closer to Malcolm’s departure, his own features grew more and more refined, with more warmth and a calming sort of intimacy; Malcolm’s increasingly improved technical skills were an obvious reason why, but he couldn’t help but feel he wasn’t just being used as a convenient model.

His breath caught as he neared the end of the stack. With a date from only a few days past, the page held an image of himself, curled up asleep, his face peaceful in his rest. There was no doubt in his mind that Malcolm had to have drawn him in bed; this was not something that could have been drawn from memory, like the other pieces had been. It was too detailed, too real, with a depth that was missing from earlier sketches. To see himself quite literally as Malcolm saw him was not something he’d been prepared for, and he felt almost as though this was as close as he could possibly get to the man, closer than he’d ever been even from holding him, being inside of him, hearing him say things he might have only told a handful of people over the course of his life. Julius knew he was prone to flights of fancy but he also knew that he was not imagining the care that was imbued in this drawing. Any remaining worry regarding Malcolm’s true thoughts towards him was erased, and replaced with the sight of the simple bit of charcoal on newsprint that he held in his hands.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Then, he gathered up the drawings, carefully straightened the stack, and placed them on Malcolm’s desk with the others. No sooner had he put them down that his mobile rang; curious, he pulled it out and saw it was Malcolm calling him back. He swiped to answer and said, “Hello?”

“Hey, forgot to mention something,” Malcolm said. Julius could hear a forced lightness in his voice as he continued, “Don’t, uh, don’t pay any mind to whatever scraps of paper I’ve got laying about, right?”

Julius cringed internally. “It’s a little too late for that, I’m afraid,” he said. “I do apologize, I hadn’t meant to be so nosey. I was going to tell you, if you hadn’t called.”

The pause at the end of the line left him on tenterhooks until Malcolm finally said, “It’s fine. Look--sorry if it’s weird or anything.”

“It’s not weird,” he said quickly. He smiled softly, unconsciously, for a moment. “Actually, it’s quite lovely. I do wonder how you’d caught me sleeping, as I don’t sleep that heavily.”

“You sleep like a log,” Malcolm said. The tension from moments ago was gone, replaced by a true lightness now. “And I figured out how to sneak out after a couple false starts, anyway. You sure it’s not weird?”

“It’s not at all, I’m very appreciative.”

“Should’ve drawn your cock. Could’ve made it weird then.”

The corners of Julius’s mouth twitched up into a smile. “Is it crowded where you are?”

“Very. Past security now, just waiting for the boarding call.” There was another pause, a slight shift in the background noise; Malcolm was checking the time on his mobile, he surmised. “Probably going to be in the next ten minutes or so.”

“Then I suppose I should allow you time to gather your things,” he said. He looked down at the stack of pages on the desk, his fingers briefly brushing over them. “And I truly mean it when I say it’s not strange. It’s charming.”

“If you say so.”

“I do,” he said. “Happy Christmas, Malcolm. I l--I’ll speak to you soon.”

“Happy Christmas, Jules.”

He hung up and leaned heavily against the desk. What would have been unimaginable a year ago was strangely just as unimaginable to him today, no matter the reality of the situation, or how much it filled his heart with happiness. He could not risk pushing more boundaries without discussion first, no matter how well Malcolm had taken his thoughtless perusal of his private work; the idea of going too far and creating an impassable chasm between the two of them was a worry he wasn't sure he'd ever let go of.

Just as he could not imagine that Malcolm was now so deeply a part of his life, he could not imagine losing him to curiosity or miscommunication. He had work to do while Malcolm was away, and not only on his book.


	9. An Education

Life without Malcolm felt abrupt. Julius found himself going out more often, meeting with friends who he hadn’t seen in quite some time, but at the end of the day the silence and emptiness of his home was startling. In the simplest terms, he missed Malcolm dearly, and had to restrain himself from calling or texting too often. There was no need to seem as though he were hovering, or insecure, or anything else that might lead to Malcolm having second thoughts about their relationship.

But if he wished to give Malcolm the space to breathe away from him, that wish stood in conflict with his wish to better understand where the lines should be between them, a question that he feared asking as it could itself cross a line he hadn’t known about. That question burned in his mind for days as he tried to guess the answer rather than ask for it, until one evening when a solution seemed to present itself out of the blue.

His mobile rang as he was writing in his study. Annoyed--it wasn’t Malcolm’s ringtone, after all--he picked up the phone and said, “Hello?”

“Happy Shitemas, Lord Bollockson!”

“...And the warmest wishes of the season to you, as well, James.” In the background, he could hear the clattering and chattering of a young family; girls, laughing, happy and most likely over-excited by sugar and the promise of gifts yet to come. He stretched his memory back to the last time they’d worked together and hoped he recalled things correctly as he asked, “How are your children? Lillian and Maisie, yes?”

“There’s a third now, little Charlie,” James said brightly. His voice was proud as he added, “Wee devils, the lot of them. Just waiting for Santa now.”

“They’ve got a few days,” Julius said. “I’m sure they’ll enjoy being spoiled silly.”

“Aye, they’re gonna love what the old fat wank left them under the tree,” James said. Julius could barely hear a woman somewhere near him, making what sounded, if he was hearing correctly, a somewhat rude implication regarding what James might have done in order to guarantee those gifts, before James turned away from the phone to respond that, “the bairns don’t need to know who Daddy did for their prezzies this year.”

“Charming family,” Julius said dryly.

That dryness was lost upon James, who said, “I love them to death, I really do,” with the voice of a man who had found God in the desert. “Listen, Malc around? How’s he doing?”

“He’s actually not, though I can let him know you rang.” He leaned back in his chair and said, “He’s gone to see his family for the holidays but he should be back in the new year.”

“He’s coming back? Of his own free will?” James let out a low whistle. “What sort of blackmail do you have on him?”

“None, he simply enjoys my company, and I his,” Julius said. He might have said it a touch more defensively than he’d intended.

“Suppose you stuff him full of fruit and he’ll stick around for a while,” James said.

Julius recalled an earlier conversation with James and tried to stifle the laugh bubbling up inside him. “Yes. Stuff him full of--fruit.”

There was a too-long pause on the other end of the line. “I can hear you smirking. Why are you smirking?”

Because I’m also stuffing him full of cock, Julius thought triumphantly, and then chided himself for the coarse language. A moment later, he realized that it was probably not a good thing to have James MacDonald wary and suspicious of you, and he chided himself further for the turn the conversation had taken. “I’m not smirking,” he said, and it was the truth. “At any rate, since Malcolm will be back in roughly a fortnight, why don’t you come for a visit? It’s been some months since you’ve seen him.”

A sigh broke through the line, followed by a weary sort of non-committal sound. “I dunno,” James said. “Maybe later. Let him have some time away.”

“He’s had it,” Julius said. “Samantha’s been here and he’d taken the visit quite well, I’m sure once I ask him, he’ll be pleased as punch to see you.”

“He’ll be pleased to punch me if he sees me, more like,” James mumbled. “Look, it’s a long story, and I’m not--if he’s happy, then leave it, yeah?”

Julius pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “I will, of course, not force the issue, but I must admit I’m rather confused by your reticence to visit. Are you not the same man who brought him to me, looking for a safe place for him to unwind from his time in penitentiary?”

“Christ, do you have to talk like that? Like a living, breathing English language primer?”

“Do you have to be so emotionally constipated?” Julius shot back.

“Yes,” said James, “I do. Me and Malc, that’s our way. Constipation or the shits, no in between.”

“I rather think not,” he said tightly. “I won’t divulge any secrets but he has been much more forthcoming of late, and in quite a measured way.”

There was another long pause. “You’re fucking him,” James said, his voice low and dark.

“I’m--I--what?”

“I swear to Mary, Joseph and the wee Christ child whose birth we are celebrating with rapturous joy that I will come up there and strangle you with your own reeking entrails-”

“So you’ll visit, then?” Julius asked quickly.

Over the phone, Julius heard the sound of his family grow more and more distant until the click of a door locking indicated that they were well away from James now. “I told you specifically that you weren’t the fruit he was meant to be stuffed with.”

“Yes, and I deliberately ignored that moment of homophobic nonsense,” Julius said. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Shut it, Nutsnacker,” James snapped. “Do you have any idea-” There was another sigh, this time shorter and angrier. “Was it bizarrely fast?”

“Was what bizarrely fast?”

“How quickly he got all lovey-fucky with you,” James said. “Happened overnight, right?”

“I wouldn’t say quite that fast,” Julius said. A part of him that had remained quiet the past few days awoke, whispering doubts in the back of his mind. “And I can assure you, I had no motives or agendas beyond the ones you and I shared.”

“It’s not about motives.” James sounded weary, and Julius could hear the scrape of a chair against the floor as he sat down. “I know--you’ve got a notebook filled with little pink hearts drawn around your name and his, all ‘Mister and Mister Tucker-Nicholson’--Julius, I know you’ve got no ill intent, right. You’ve just also got no idea.”

“Then fill me in,” he said. “No idea about what?”

“What it was like the last time, the time before that, the time before that one,” James said. “I was there then, and if I’m not there for him this time-”

“How about you be there for him?” Julius said, seizing the opportunity to drag the conversation back to where he wanted. “I have no idea what you think is going to happen but why not come up after Christmas, re-establish your place in his life so you can be here for whatever it is you need to be here for.”

There was a long pause, during which Julius could only imagine what James looked like: elbow braced against knee, palm covering his eyes as he leaned forward onto his hand in solemn thought. “Right,” James said at last, his voice quiet, calm, and determined. “Right, I’ll come up after Christmas and kill you.”

“Great, thank you.” Julius frowned as he processed what James had said, but decided it was best not to debate it, in case he changed his mind about coming up. “Do let me know if it will be just yourself, or if I shall prepare rooms for the family.”

“If it’ll be a murder, I can’t bring the weans,” James said, sounding a touch sad. “Wifey wouldn’t approve.”

“I’m...uh, sorry to hear that.”

“They’re just not old enough yet,” he went on. “In a few years, maybe--but no, much as they might like to see their Uncle Malc, can’t bring them with me if there’s to be bloodshed. They’re too impressionable.”

“Perhaps, if there isn’t bloodshed,” Julius began delicately, “they might still get the chance to see him?”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, then a soft sigh. “We’ll see,” James said. “It’s just you might not be the only one bleeding out by the end of that visit, right?”

“I would still like to pick your brain on that front,” Julius said. “If you feel it is appropriate to discuss.”

“It’s--look, after Christmas, yeah? And before Malc comes back,” James said. “I’ll tell you all about why I’ll be stringing you up by your ballsack and letting my kids have a go at you like some kind of chrome-capped pinata.”

“Aren’t they, er, too young for such an activity?”

“Oh,” James said glumly. “Mebbe. Okay, you’re right, I’ll come up with something more age appropriate. Thanks.”

“Glad I could. Um. Help.”

*

Christmas at Mrs. Trumbull’s had been, as it had been every other year, a balm for his soul. Half the village had made their way through her home, some staying for only a few minutes, long enough to say hello and drop off a gift or card, and others for hours. Julius had of course spent the day and, when he had made to leave in the wee hours of Boxing Day, had been bustled back to the spare room and told that he would be leaving at a much more reasonable time after the sun had risen. 

She’d given him a thoughtful look before heading to bed herself, and in the morning, she’d asked, “Are you doing all right, Jules?”

“I’m doing very well,” he’d said, as he’d helped her put away the dishes.

“Good,” she’d said. Then she’d stood on the tips of her toes to kiss his cheek. “I could tell, but just wanted to be sure.”

A balm, as it had been every other year; but a balm that he hadn’t needed quite as desperately as he had in the past, and so had managed to elevate his spirit to heights of restfulness and peace that he could barely recall ever having felt. Still, he had his more worrisome thoughts, and they whispered in the back of his mind like water against river rock. They would have to wait til the new year, once James was able to come up and explain why he was apparently going to murder Julius in quite a violent fashion.

Or, perhaps, they wouldn’t have to wait.

Julius trudged up the road to his home, unlocked the gate and, for a moment, stood at the door and looked out onto the deserted land. He was close enough to the village to walk, but far enough that he could feel an emptiness in him when he came home alone. How different the house felt with Malcolm in it now; it wasn’t the same uncertain presence that had been there with his parents, and it wasn’t even the same as when Malcolm had first joined him after his time in penitentiary. It was a presence that calmed him, and its absence left him weary.

He smirked and laughed to himself as he realized how unbelievable that would sound to most people who knew him--who knew them--and unlocked his front door. This wasn’t the sort of village where you had to lock up, but he was used to London now, and he’d locked his house down out of habit rather than distrust. Once inside, he kicked off his boots, put away his coat, and made his way to the sitting room with the intent of starting a fire.

“Hello, Lord Julius.”

Julius attempted not to soil himself, and largely succeeded. “Ah, uh, Samantha. Hello.” There was a fire already going, and Malcolm’s erstwhile PA was seated quite casually and comfortably in one of the armchairs. “Happy Christmas. Lovely to see you.”

“Happy Christmas,” she replied, smiling serenely. “Good to see you as well. I hope you don’t mind. My family’s not far from here, so I was in the area, thought I might come round for a visit.”

“Lovely,” he said again. “And of course, you’re always welcome. Only--I don’t mean to insinuate anything, please do not take offense--only, ah, my doors were locked. And so were the windows. And the front gate, which is really quite tall.”

“Yes.”

“And yet, you are. Um. Inside?”

“Hmmm.”

He tried to point in the vague direction of the kitchen, corrected himself, and said, “I’ll just go make us some tea.”

“Ta.”

Not quite able to take his eyes off her, he walked away, managing to trip over his own feet only once as he left the sitting room. As soon as he made it to the kitchen, he felt his mobile buzz in his pocket; he fished it out and read the message, “say hi 2 sam 4 me. lots of luv, jammy.”

“Jammy?” he muttered, frowning in deep confusion.

Buzz. “*Jamie.”

Ah. The Glaswegian reprobate had negotiated a detente and sent the unassuming assassin, then. Would it be a merciful death, he wondered, and would he be able to have one final chocolate biscuit before he breathed his last. He went about making tea on autopilot, and carried the tea tray into the room with far more poise than he actually felt.

“I take it with milk, no sugar,” Sam said. “If I recall, you take it with sugar, no tea?”

“You wouldn’t kill a man on Christmas,” he blurted out. Then he cringed and put the tray down.

She stared at him, bewildered. “It’s not Christmas anymore.”

Julius’s shoulders dropped as all hope left him. “Might I at least say my final goodbyes first?”

“Oh for God’s sake, you’re not dying,” Sam said with a roll of her eyes. She poured herself a cup and added, “I’m just here to find out your intentions.” A glare, and then: “Right, you might still die. But it’s not a given. Please sit down, your looming is a bit gloomier than I like, I’m afraid.”

He sat, delicately, and warily took the cup that was offered to him. “I understand you’ve spoken to James,” he said.

“I have,” she said slowly. She pursed her lips as she held her cup in her hands. “And I understand that Malcolm is no longer only a houseguest.”

“He was never only a houseguest,” Julius admitted. He put his cup back down, took off his glasses and scrubbed tiredly at his face. “Sam, I don’t pretend to understand what’s going on with you and James. But if you were to speak to Malcolm, instead of--doing whatever it is this is, then you’d know there is nothing untoward happening here. And, frankly, it’s nobody’s business but ours, and I am not sure I’d entertain any interrogations on the subject except that I do actually want to know how to avoid hurting him and have wanted to know even before Mister MacDonald issued a warrant for my death, and as such I am willing to be prodded at in exchange for that understanding.”

Sam eyed him critically, as though measuring him up as she sipped her tea. “You’d prefer I spoke with Malcolm instead of you?”

Julius sighed and, possibly for the first time in his well-kempt, refined life, flopped gracelessly back and slumped into his chair. “I do want to ask you and James how best to proceed,” he said, “though I’m increasingly uncomfortable with doing so behind his back. It somehow feels like strategizing.”

“And you don’t think he would understand if he found out about you asking the two of us instead?” she asked carefully.

He looked down at his hands in his lap, laced his fingers together, then unlaced them and did it again. Images from Malcolm’s time with him flashed through his mind; the anger in his eyes when he’d confronted Julius about the door to his room, the look on his face the evening that Sam had first come and gone, a laugh shared over something that had happened in the village. Malcolm, dozing next to him, the impression of recently untied rope on his wrists, the barely pink criss-crossed imprints on his arms and chest, as he had murmured his contentment. Malcolm, looking at him with a heady mix of trust, loyalty, and determined protection, when he had needed it most.

“I love him,” Julius said softly. “Whether or not he were to find out is irrelevant, it feels like a betrayal regardless. Especially since, no, I think he would try to be quite understanding, perhaps even too much so.”

Sam leaned back in her chair. “Jamie said you’d wanted to know about his past.”

Julius grimaced, shook his head. “I did. I do. But now that I’m presented with the opportunity...I’d rather just talk to him directly. It’s his history to tell or not tell.”

Something in his responses had warmed her towards him, and the critical wariness from earlier had turned into something closer to shared concern. “Then all I’ll tell you is this. Malcolm does nothing in half measures. He doesn’t know how. Sometimes others might have taken advantage of that fact. Given the circles that we work and play in, I'm sure you can imagine these were not rare occurrences for him.” She leaned forward and tried to meet his eyes, only speaking when she did. “You love him?”

“Yes,” he said, “and I am ever so slightly terrified of bungling this.”

“Will you tell him that?”

His need for honesty warred with his need to keep Malcolm from feeling as though he had to take on the responsibility of reassuring him. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “Never in so many words, but I don’t want him to think I take him for granted, either. I think I must, though I must be careful how.”

Sam’s eyes softened and her lips quirked up into a half-hidden smile. “I think you might be overthinking things.”

He sighed deeply and took a sip of his cooling tea. “Well, I’d rather not be murdered by either you or James, so overthinking is a necessity.” More seriously, he added, “I just don’t want to lose him.” He frowned as a thought occurred to him. “His falling out with James, was that--? You said others had taken advantage, but surely James-”

“Jamie had piss poor timing and Malcolm does nothing in half measures,” Sam said, “including cutting people out. Massive misunderstanding, stubbornness and two boys who couldn’t be more stupid about it. Does Malcolm talk about Jamie at all?”

“Not really, no,” Julius said. “He only ever talked about his family with me. But James does seem to...regret how things are, now. At least that’s the impression I’ve gotten from our brief conversations. I’ve even convinced him to come up after the holidays, before Malcolm’s supposed to return--he’d said he’d explain Malcolm’s past, though I’m not sure I wish to hear about it. Perhaps a peace could be brokered instead?”

“It might be worth trying,” she hedged.

“Would you forgive him?” he asked. “I don’t know the details, obviously, but could you take that step?”

Sam looked sharply at him before turning her gaze away. “I’ll follow Malcolm’s lead,” she said slowly.

“Your loyalty is admirable,” he said.

“My loyalty was earned,” she replied. “And my forgiveness wouldn’t be in complete lockstep, I said I’d follow his lead, not mirror his every move. If he chooses forgiveness, I won’t make things difficult, but I can’t say for certain that I could be as kind.”

Julius nodded in acceptance and leaned back; he was even more curious to know what had occurred that could have driven someone he had thought had been a gentle young woman to such anger. But it wasn’t his place to pry, only to provide an arena for the three of them to--hopefully--work things out. “I will keep you posted, then. As long as I remain alive after James comes for a visit, that is.”

She smiled at him as though she knew she wouldn’t be getting any updates post-James; Julius made the mental note to update his will as soon as possible.


	10. Jamie

At least Julius could say there had been no breaking and entering with James’s visit. He wasn’t sure he could say, yet, that it was an improvement upon Sam’s.

Halfway between Christmas and New Year’s Day, James sat across from Julius in the sunlit sitting room, his eyes a fantastic, terrifying blue as he glared chainsaws into Julius’s face. “If this doesn’t go well,” James began, “I’m going to string faery lights through your guts and hang them around my house for the holidays.”

Julius couldn’t help but cringe. “Christmas is over,” he weakly argued.

James grinned like a wolf on the hunt. “Never to early to start for next year,” he said. “The kids’d like it.”

“Ah,” Julius said. He shifted in his chair, tried not to look like he was squirming. “As much as I would hate to disappoint them, I do hope that you find our conversation satisfactory.”

James grunted. “You wanted to know why I’m gonna kill you.”

“Actually, I think I’ll just ask Malcolm,” he said. “It dawned on me during Sam’s visit that to do otherwise would be unseemly.”

This seemed to throw a spanner into the hamster wheel spinning in James’s brain, or possibly into the hamster itself. He pursed his lips, frowned, and asked, “Then why am I here?”

Julius bit his lip and tried to think of the best way to phrase what he’d wanted to say. He’d had an idea earlier, but for whatever reason that plan had left him now that James was in front of him. “I’d like to know, from your side, what happened between the two of you,” he finally said. James looked as though he would explode, so Julius quickly added, “It’s just that you two were joined at the hip for so long, and I wish that whatever it was can be healed. For Malcolm’s sake.”

James peered at him suspiciously. “So, what? You called me here to apologize? Or draft an apology, I guess, since he’s not here?”

“No, I-” He took off his glasses and wiped his face, frustrated at his inability to articulate his thoughts. “I don’t know. I wanted to know if I could help.”

With a huff of a humorless laugh, James slouched down into his chair. “Yeah, well, some things can’t really be helped. Best to leave this one alone, right? Just forget it.”

“Sam said you were both being stubborn,” Julius said.

“Oh, Sam said,” James mocked, though there wasn’t any real strength in his anger. 

“She’s also made clear that even if Malcolm does come round, she might not,” Julius said. “But for the life of me I can’t imagine you could have done anything warranting that treatment.”

James seemed to be finding his fingernails more interesting than meeting Julius’s eyes, and he leaned forward on his elbows. “He thinks I sold him out,” he admitted quietly, “and she thinks I should’ve tried harder to set the record straight. Well it’s not my fault he’s paranoid, okay? And maybe I already knew it wouldn’t be worth fighting it.”

“Did you try at all?” Julius asked before he could think better of it.

“Of course I didn’t. No point, that’s what you learn when you’re joined at the hip with Malcolm Tucker, isn’t it?” he snapped. He shook his head and said, “Look, you want to do things for Malcolm’s sake, you leave it alone. Don’t even tell him I was here. Fresh start, no baggage.”

“Bit fucking late to sweep the shite under the rug.”

Julius snapped his head up, eyes to the sitting room door. Malcolm, satchel still slung across his chest and a small wrapped box in his hand, stood stiff and ashen as he stared at the two of them. Dumbfounded, Julius asked, “How did you--I was meant to pick you up from the station, next week, how are you here?”

“Uber,” Malcolm said weakly. He dropped the box on a side table. “Surprise. What’s he doing here?”

Before Julius could answer, James stood up and said, “It’s not Julius’s fault. I invited myself in.”

“That is...completely untrue,” Julius said. He stood up slowly and said, “Malcolm, ignore him. He’s trying to fall on his sword again.”

Malcolm peered at him suspiciously. “What do you mean, again?” Then he blinked almost violently, and said, “Wait, no, I don’t give a fuck. I’m out.”

Julius waved James back down as he ran out after Malcolm. “What do you mean, you’re out?” he asked, cornering him in the foyer. “You just got here.”

“And I shouldn’t be here,” Malcolm hissed. “Only reason I’m here is because--” He cut himself off and ran his hands through his hair, clenching his jaw against whatever words were threatening to spill out.

Julius felt a panic rising in him and he held Malcolm’s arm, crowding his space and not caring one bit about it. “Because what?”

“Because if I didn’t come back today, I didn’t know if I would come back,” he said. His eyes held a hint of wildness that Julius hadn’t seen in some time, and he realized that it scared him. “Everything was happening too fast, it always happens too fast, and it took me being away to realize-”

“And then you came back anyway,” Julius said, unable to hide the pleading note in his voice. “Just because James is here, you’re done?”

“What’s he doing here?” he asked again. “You told him to come when I was gone?”

“I did. Because he’s known you longer than anyone else I know, and I wanted to know what went wrong. I thought I wanted to know something else, but that was it.” He forced himself to loosen his grip on Malcolm’s arm. “Please don’t go. I don’t pretend to know why you thought you might not come back home, but you’re here now and I’m begging you, don’t be too quick to leave. If it’s too fast, we slow down. But stay, please.”

Malcolm moved like an animal that wanted to pace but didn’t have the room, and asked a third time, “What’s he doing here?” His voice cracked on the last word, and it was only then that Julius registered that Malcolm was on the verge of panicking himself.

He turned the grip on Malcolm’s arm into a soothing rub. “He called just before Christmas to see how you were doing, and figured out we were together.” Taking Malcolm’s hands in his own, he said gently, “He came to murder me.”

Something softened in Malcolm’s eyes, some kind of confusion flickered there, as he asked, “Really?”

“Yes. Darling, he was worried for you.” He pressed a kiss against Malcolm’s knuckles. “I swear it’s the truth.”

Malcolm glanced behind Julius’s shoulder, as though he were trying to see James from where they stood. “Was it gruesome, how he was gonna do it?”

“His home was to be festooned with my illuminated intestines in preparation for next year’s holidays.”

“With blinky lights, or-”

“He didn’t specify.”

“Still, that’s…” He glanced behind Julius’s shoulder again. “Really?”

“You need to talk with him,” Julius said. “If not today, then that’s fine, but someday. And if you want to scream and need to be angry with me, that’s fine too, but at least stay, all right?”

Malcolm looked down, lost in thought, clearly conflicted. “If not today-”

“Another day,” Julius said. He tipped Malcolm’s head up with his finger against Malcolm’s chin. “Sorry. I was going to tell you he’d come by, I just hadn’t expected you would be back today.”

“He said not to tell me he was here.”

“And I wasn’t planning on listening to him,” Julius said. “Would you like to wait somewhere else while I show him out?”

“You don’t-” Malcolm scrubbed his face, then ran his hands roughly through his hair. “Finish your chat, right? I can wait while you do that.”

Julius sighed, tried to figure out the look in Malcolm’s eyes. “I’d rather you be comfortable...and I’d rather not have you think there are any more secrets between us.”

Malcolm looked him over, searching for something. He seemed to find it; calming down just barely enough that Julius noticed, he nodded, then walked back to the sitting room door to quietly lurk behind Julius.

In the doorway, Julius looked at James with all the regret he felt in the moment. “I’m sorry, James. I must ask you to leave.”

James nodded, stood and said, “I can show myself out. Thanks for having me.” He nodded a goodbye to Malcolm, over Julius’s shoulder, on his way out. Julius couldn’t see if Malcolm had returned the gesture, but he was nonetheless somehow certain that he hadn’t.

Once the front door had clicked shut, Malcolm said, “You called him here.”

“I owe you an explanation,” Julius admitted.

There was a barely repressed energy to Malcolm's form, the potential for explosiveness just beneath the surface. It looked to Julius as though his body could not contain his thoughts. “You don't,” said Malcolm.

“Yes I do.” He reached forward to take Malcolm's hands in his, but was brushed off. Holding his hands up in surrender, he took a step back and said, “I wanted to help, but I should have waited for you. To see if you wanted it. Interference like this-”

“Jules-” He clenched his fists, his eyes, smiled tightly with his lips pressed tight together. “It’s fine,” he forced out.

The lie was painful enough on its own to hear, but Julius could see something in Malcolm’s gaze when he opened his eyes again, something that helped him understand what he’d been seeing moments before. There was a fear there of something slipping out of reach, a missed opportunity for another chance. He looked to the door, then back at Malcolm; Malcolm, for his part, was pretending not to look at that same door, acting as though he had no fears related to the distance beyond it.

An act of impulse had brought Malcolm back home early, and now he was resisting the impulse to walk out, to go after James, to do anything but stand still. It terrified him, this idea that Malcolm was one impulsive move away from shattering this thing they’d begun building together--or worse, that he was one impulsive move away from shattering himself--but he remembered a promise he’d made early in their relationship. He had a duty, perhaps not as well defined or articulated as it could have been, but it was nonetheless a duty he understood and accepted. 

He took Malcolm’s face in his hands, ignored the frown, and stroked his cheeks with his thumbs. “I’m going to get James back if I can.”

“Jules-”

“You told me once to push you,” he said. “You want to talk. You both want to. If you grow tired, or angry, you will tell me, yes, but you could at least try?” He waited for Malcolm’s nod, then added, “Stay here.”

Malcolm stared after him, bewildered, as he pulled out his mobile and headed out the door. He hoped James would answer fast enough to turn his car around--but he quickly realized he didn’t need to worry as he saw the man leaning against his car, arms crossed over his chest, a cigarette dangling from his fingers. 

“Sorry,” James said as he realized Julius was walking towards him. He dropped the cigarette and ground it under his heel, standing up straight and fishing his keys out of his pocket. “Just needed a quick smoke, I’ll be off-”

“I’d rather you weren’t,” Julius said. “Malcolm would like to speak with you.”

“Oh?” There was that same look in his eyes, the anxiety of watching something get away from him, so similar to Malcolm’s that for a moment Julius had trouble telling their gazes apart; in his mind’s eye they were one and the same, blended together inextricably in that moment. “Well, maybe later, I’ve got to be going-”

“No, no no,” Julius murmured, slinging an arm around James’s shoulders. James was wiry and solid, strong as a coiled spring, but Julius had the advantages of height and surprise over him. It may have looked as though he were simply being friendly with the smaller man, but he was putting all his effort into steering him inside the house before he had the sense to fight it and run away. “Now is as good a time as any, you’re already here. No need to delay the inevitable.”

James stared at him, bewildered, as he gently shoved him back into the sitting room. Malcolm’s apprehension was tangible even as he tried to hide it, a breath held as his shoulders tensed and words that he kept inside, unwilling or unable to be the first to speak.

It did not take long for Julius to realize James was in the same state, so he said, “Why don’t you two take a walk, enjoy the good weather. I’ll have a fresh pot of tea ready for your return.”

If he could focus on preparing the tea and some light sandwiches, Julius could ignore, for the moment, the worrisome thoughts roiling inside of him. So he did just that as the two of them left, trying not to spare them another thought, and trying even harder whenever he failed. What had Malcolm meant when he’d said he wouldn’t have come back, and why had James presumed for so long that there was no point setting the record straight with Malcolm? Selfishly, Julius couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to their own relationship if they ever had a major fight--or if this moment itself was the start of such a fight, a beginning that he would come to regret soon enough.

He made the sandwiches. There was no point dwelling on the past or, at least for now, worrying about the future. He could do enough of that once Malcolm had returned and James had left.

With that particular anxiety taking its place ahead of all others, Julius peeked out the window as he set the kettle on the hob. The two hadn’t walked very far, making it only to the old split rail fence just past the kitchen garden. A hopeful part of Julius wondered if Malcolm had planned it that way somehow; there was no way he didn’t know that they would be perfectly visible to Julius, given how long he had lived at the house.

A more cynical part of him wondered if Malcolm knew but hadn’t realized, in his current state, that Julius could see him, and ashamed at his overly curious nature, he thought to turn away. Before he could, a movement caught his eye--James, reaching out to touch Malcolm’s arm. Malcolm had been leaning with tense profile against the post for the long seconds Julius had been watching them, arms crossed and jaw visibly clenched even at this distance, eyes fixed on some spot on the ground in front of him.

Standing beside him, with a look as pleading as he’d never thought he’d see on James MacDonald, and with a gentleness he’d never thought possible, James was reaching out to him and speaking ardently. His hand never left Malcolm’s arm, his grip light but firm, his entire body tight with a desperation that seemed to be mirrored in Malcolm’s own closed-off form. A skill Julius had studied in his years in both business and politics had clicked back into place earlier, one that had served him well when pretending not to notice conversations in glass-enclosed offices and across noisy rooms. And while he couldn’t read every word that James was saying, things were made easier for him when James repeated himself: You’re my brother. Malcolm, you’re my brother.

Some tension left Malcolm’s frame, though it seemed to Julius that it was more from exhaustion than anything else. It was only when James looked to pull him in for a hug--suddenly reminiscent of that moment in Mrs. Trumbull’s garden shed, that felt so long ago--that Julius remembered to look away. 

He made the tea. He knew he shouldn’t have spied, but he also, in some corner of his mind, felt just the tiniest bit of relief at Malcolm’s surrender.

It wasn’t long before the front door creaked open again, and the sound of boots scuffing on flagstone filled the house. “So you’ll stay,” James was saying, his voice slightly muffled in the hall.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Malcolm said.

“It’s good for you here, you look good,” James said; he was rubbing Malcolm’s shoulders almost absently, looking him over with great care, though his whole demeanor shifted as soon as Julius walked out with the tray. “You’re getting fat. He fattening you up? Baldy, you have some sort of feeder kink?”

Tired though he was, Malcolm smirked at him with a knowing look. With an innocent smile, Julius asked, “Would you like a sandwich, James?”

The hamster spun off its wheel again, and James stared at the proffered meal with some apprehension before grabbing a bite. “Why d’you call me James, anyway? It’s Jamie. Just Jamie.”

Julius tutted and took the tray into the sitting room. “James is much more becoming of a man of your stature--figuratively speaking, of course,” he added as he glanced down at James.

James had moments ago stuffed his cheeks like a chipmunk and was unable to reply with any retort beyond, “Jay-mee.” Even with the glare, it did not have the intended effect.

“Just call him Jamie, yeah?” Malcolm said, finally beginning to crack the slightest smile. “James is his da’s name.”

“So I suppose,” Julius said carefully as he poured the tea, “your father's name isn't Malcolm?”

“It’s Ian, actually,” Malcolm said as he took his customary seat. 

James--Jamie, Julius corrected himself--reached for another sandwich and said, “I really do need to head back. Can’t stick around, the wife’ll be wondering if you’ve trapped me in the larder for later.”

“You’re much too lean and gamey,” Julius said. “At least take some tea, I believe I’ve got some thermal mugs here.”

“That...would be lovely, actually,” Jamie said. “Be really grateful for it.”

He bundled Jamie out of his home with a half-eaten sandwich and a mug of hot tea, gladly acknowledging both his cheerful goodbyes and his equally cheerful threats of grievous bodily harm. The moment he closed the door, his house felt like it had crossed into some other dimension--the quiet, the stillness, was so different from what it was with Jamie’s presence. He leaned against the heavy wooden door to center himself before heading back into the sitting room.

Malcolm was picking idly at a sandwich, sprawled in his chair with his plate resting on his thigh. “I got you a present,” he said, not looking up.

Julius sat across from him, glanced over to the table where the smallish wrapped box sat. “Thank you. I’ll open it later,” he said. He looked at his tea, cooling in its cup, and asked, “Did you mean it? When you said that you wouldn’t have come back?”

There was a silence heavier than anything he’d known for a long time. “You of all people should know better than to believe everything I say.”

“That doesn’t actually answer the question,” Julius said.

“True.” He sat up, leaned forward, put his plate back on the coffee table and steepled his fingers under his chin for a moment before resting against his hands. “It’s better,” he began slowly, “to leave before you’re pushed out, right? To ride out on a high note, before you’re deemed obsolete. I like it here. I like being here, and being away reminded me what it’s like to want to be somewhere else and. Not be able to be there.”

Julius could feel his breath leaving him; its return grew more difficult with each departure. “I don’t know what to say to that,” he admitted. “If I tell you I could never push you out, it would sound trite and forced, no matter how true, wouldn’t it?”

Malcolm was silent. He ran a hand over his face--Julius had always thought he had such elegant hands in motion, but he wanted nothing more in that moment than to take them in his own hands, still them, cover them and hold them tightly. Eventually, Malcolm said, “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this yet.”

He nodded, seeing exactly how tired Malcolm was growing, even as he himself had begun to feel an aching restlessness and a need to keep chasing down whatever this conversation was becoming. “Perhaps,” he said, searching for something to look at besides Malcolm’s face, besides the eyes he wouldn’t dare to meet for fear that his gaze would give away just how much he wanted to keep talking about it.

He finally settled for looking at Malcolm’s boots, heavy and laced loosely over his thick wool socks. Impulsively, he went to kneel before him, murmuring, “You haven’t even had the chance to take your shoes off, I’m sorry,” as he unlaced them and tugged them off.

Malcolm regarded him quizzically, frowning, though with a gentleness in his features. “You really like having someone to fuss over, don’t you,” he said softly.

Julius knelt back on his haunches and shifted until he was settled against the chair, between Malcolm’s legs with his head resting against his knee. He played with the cuff of Malcolm’s jeans absently, letting the roughness of the denim help him drift and focus all at once. “I like fussing over one man in particular,” he said. “The rest of mankind be damned.” He felt Malcolm’s fingers stroking his cheek, then his neck, and closed his eyes; he wanted nothing to distract him from the moment.

“I suppose I could get used to that,” Malcolm said.

“Promise me,” Julius said, “that if you feel like running away, you won’t hide it. If you must ever leave me, at least don’t leave me blindsided.”

Malcolm didn’t say a word; Julius imagined, fantasized really, that he could feel his consent. A shift in the atmosphere between them, a change in the pressure of his hand on Julius’s skin. After a moment in the calm of that hoped-for concession, Malcolm said, “Go get your present. Want you to open it.”

Glancing back at him with a curious look, Julius got up and got the small box before returning to his place on the floor. He quickly ripped the paper off as Malcolm leaned forward, massaging his shoulders and peering down from behind him. The lid popped off easily. “A watch? It’s very beautiful, thank you-”

“Read the inscription,” Malcolm said.

He took one more moment to admire the face, then flipped it over to read the back. With a frown, he said, “‘For My Brazillian.’ I’m not sure I understand.”

“You know. A bald cunt.”

Julius could feel the pink rising in his cheeks even as he fumbled with the watch he was already wearing, trying to quickly rip it off and replace it with Malcolm’s gift. “Feral boy,” he chided, though there was nothing but warmth in the admonishment.

“Feral--you’re the one sitting on the ground, you’re going to hurt yourself if you stay down there,” Malcolm said.

Ignoring the warning, he twisted so that he was leaning against Malcolm’s calf and looking up at him. “Promise me you won’t run,” he said.

Malcolm’s smile faltered and left his eyes. “That’s a different promise from before. And a bigger one to make.”

“Promise it anyway,” Julius said. “It doesn’t need to be true, I just want to hear it.”

“Promise me you won’t go digging without telling me first,” Malcolm said.

Julius opened his mouth to promise, but the words were strangled in his throat. More than once, he’d found himself putting his nose where it probably didn’t belong, only begging forgiveness after the fact. Even when it began as an accident, he’d still kept going; that Malcolm could forgive or brush it off didn’t mean it never happened, or could never happen again.

As that realization filtered through his head, Malcolm smiled ruefully down at him and said, “Not easy making a promise you know you can’t keep.”

Julius could not disagree, no matter how much he wished. But after a disheartened moment, he looked hopefully up at Malcolm and said, “I promise to try. I may never be perfect, but I know I can do that.”

For whatever reason, Malcolm was unable to meet his eyes. “I suppose I can promise that too,” he said hesitantly.

Restlessness hit him suddenly, and he stood, taking Malcolm’s hands in his. “Come on. Come with me.”

“Where?” Malcolm asked, eying him warily, though he followed without resistance.

“We’re off for a bath,” Julius said.

Malcolm half frowned, half smirked. “Where is this coming from?”

“You smell and I’ve had it up to here with the stench,” Julius said. “Just--come. Let me do this.”


	11. Affirmation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is also NSFW.

Malcolm had humored him almost silently--the quips had been few and far between, as he’d watched Julius draw the bath and gather his things. “I suppose you want us both in there,” Malcolm had said.

“It’s big enough for two,” he’d replied, “and I’m feeling needy. You’ll allow me this, of course.”

A flash of apology had passed over Malcolm’s eyes before he’d rolled them, but that flash and his acquiescence had been enough to let Julius know that he’d understood the scare he’d given Julius earlier, understood how rattled Julius had been and still was.

Now he sat, leaned back against Julius’s chest, trying to hide any discomfort as he said, “Don’t normally do this sort of thing.”

Julius reached for his shaving brush on the small teak side table; his new watch was safely on the counter, and beside him was a small bowl of warm water and the rest of his shaving supplies. The heat from the bath warmed him to his bones; he hoped Malcolm would soon feel the effects himself, but in an attempt to hurry things along, he wrapped an arm around Malcolm’s shoulders, let his hand drift up to his neck, and, as he brushed cream against Malcolm’s cheeks and throat, asked, “When was the last time?”

“With my ex wife,” he said quietly. “Though she preferred to be in my spot, and me in yours.”

“Unfortunately, for me to give you a proper shave, it’s imperative for you to be the little spoon,” Julius said.

“That’s fine. Can’t really do much about it, what with you holding a knife to my throat and all.”

“Yes,” Julius murmured, as he put down the brush and reached for his razor. “That is rather the point.”

He exhaled sharply, relaxing suddenly against Julius the moment the metal touched his skin. The only sounds in the room were the soft scrape of the blade against his stubble, the lapping of warm bathwater against the tub whenever Julius shifted them, and, once, the catch of breath as the blade tugged barely too hard against Malcolm’s skin.

It was a peculiar thing, feeling Malcolm go pliant under his hands. Was it the warmth of being cared for, the thrill of unspoken threat, or both that drove him? He didn’t want to unpack it, nor did he want to unpack his own desires; instead, he pressed the blunt edge of the razor against Malcolm’s adam’s apple, and watched as his grip on the edge of the tub tightened. “Are you all right?” Julius asked.

Eyes drifting shut, head leaned back even as he held the rest of his body tense, Malcolm sighed, “Yes.”

Julius turned the razor against the underside of his jaw, slowly drew the blade against sensitive skin. Years of performing such a perfunctory act for his partners had made him an expert in knowing exactly how much pressure to apply, and how much could feel like too much without actually crossing the boundary; he was careful, here, but Malcolm’s reactions were awakening a nurturing sort of sadist inside of him that no other partner ever had. “Yes…?”

“Yes sir,” Malcolm said; the correction itself seemed to do something to his mindset, curiously enough. Julius had witnessed this before, but something about it was different now.

When Malcolm’s left hand dropped from the edge of the tub to his hardening cock, Julius found himself pressing the tip of the blade into the dip of his collarbone as he whispered, “Not yet. Not til I let you.” It was enough to get Malcolm to stop, hesitantly, and put his hand back on the tub, though Julius found that he almost regretted the order, regretted denying himself the show. He wanted to finish the shave as quickly as possible, but managed to quell that desire in favor of drawing it out, knowing that the longer he held Malcolm captive, the sweeter it would be when he finally allowed the man some relief.

He had no interest in unraveling his own reasoning when, once he’d finally finished with Malcolm in the bath, and once he’d scrubbed both of them dry, he immediately went for the rope. There was nothing he wished to interrogate about his need to bind Malcolm’s wrists in the thick, soft red-dyed silk. At this he was by no means an expert, but he’d had the practice, and had the patience, knowledge, and meticulous attention, to be adept in the art. Within minutes, Malcolm had settled against the bed, forearms bound comfortably above him in a simple double column tie; if it hadn’t been for the contrast of the bright rope against his pale skin, and the taut lines tied to the headboard, he might have looked as though he were idly crossing his arms above his head. His expression was cocky enough, as if he knew why Julius was intent on holding him in place without saying it. “All you had to do is tell me not to move,” Malcolm said.

Julius took another two lengths of rope and worked on his ankles, tying each to the bedposts until he was spread wide and firm. “I plan on ensuring that you’ll want to move,” Julius replied.

“Promises, promises,” Malcolm said with a smile. That smile faltered as he watched Julius leave and then return with a basin of warm water, a towel, and his shaving supplies. “And what do you plan on doing with all that?”

Julius knew he didn’t need to answer, and instead continued to lay out his tools for the job ahead. His final act before starting his work was to pull on a comfortable pair of drawstring trousers and a vest, a deliberate act of soft linen and light cotton, just enough of a barrier to remind him that he wasn’t the most vulnerable man in the room even if Malcolm sometimes made him feel that way.

He needn’t have worried. They had played before, of course, ropes and banter, laughter framing whatever little games they’d engaged in. This time was different; this time, Malcolm could only bring himself to watch for a moment at a time as Julius put his skills with the razor to new use, before dropping his head back to the pillow and letting his eyes drift shut. Julius remained diligently focused on his task, pulling the skin above Malcolm’s cock taut as he carefully shaved as close as he dared. He only spared a glance up when he needed to rinse his razor, but he savored the slackness of Malcolm’s face, the pink flush from his chest up, the quick rise and fall of his stomach and the tightening gasp when he pressed the wet, blunt edge of the razor against Malcolm’s balls.

He could do anything he wished, and Malcolm would allow it. He was hard, precum leaking against the smooth skin of his belly as Julius methodically finished up, the head of his cock dark pink and seemingly straining for any sort of touch. He got his wish when Julius toweled him clean, but it was over too quickly, and he finally opened his eyes to look at Julius with a mix of expectation and curiosity.

Julius gently smiled at him and said, “Not yet.” Perhaps the power was getting to his head, or perhaps he was simply feeling the need for some kind of payback for earlier, for the fear Malcolm had placed in him when he’d said he’d nearly not returned. It didn’t matter. Julius knew how to play him like an instrument, and he would, taking comfort in his gasps and cries as he gave him too little for too long. One finger curling inside of him; a too-slick hand slowly stroking the tip of his cock. He wanted Malcolm begging, on edge, ignorant of all thoughts or concerns other than whether Julius would be merciful--this was given to him, as his right. The image of Malcolm desperate for him, straining for more even as he cried out against the overstimulation, confused of his own needs yet captive to whatever Julius asked of him, was burned into him.

When he finally gave into his own weaknesses, undoing the ropes around Malcolm’s ankles so he could enter him with ease, there was a look of sheer relief on Malcolm’s face. That Julius was himself the reward for Malcolm’s suffering was not lost on him; even before coming, the poor devil seemed euphoric as Julius whispered to him words of encouragement, of how good he’d been and how patient. But even as he felt a wave of pride wash over him from seeing just how much Malcolm was truly his, he knew that he was equally Malcolm’s. The fears and insecurities that had led him to this point made that as clear as possible.

Face red and arms straining against the rope around his wrists--this was Julius’s alone, now. Malcolm came first, hard, by Julius’s hand and with his cock inside him. His sense of anything else beyond the two of them had been obliterated; Julius drank in the sight and sound of his complete surrender to the moment as though it were water in the desert. It was enough for him; he pulled out of Malcolm, stripped off the condom and jerked himself off over Malcolm’s cock and balls.

He breathed deep. Let himself take in the sight of Malcolm still recovering, let that most possessive part of his soul exhilarate for a moment at his marking Malcolm as his own and at Malcolm accepting it without reservation. Then he wiped them both down with a clean bit of the towel, undid the rope on Malcolm’s wrists with a few strategic tugs, pulled off his vest and stood to stretch his legs. Without thinking, he found himself at the bedroom window, opening it just enough to get some fresh air. It was bracingly cold outside, the sky a colorless winter’s gray, the grounds around the house frosted white and the trees bare and black.

“Jules?”

Julius turned back to Malcolm; the room was filled with the soft buttery light from the bedside lamp, warm as the look Malcolm was giving him. Those eyes that seemed to change color with Malcolm’s mood seemed hazel now, and as he raised himself up on one elbow and started to fully unfurl the red rope, Julius could see he was still slightly flushed. “Yes, Malcolm?”

“Be a dear and bring that puffy arse of yours back to bed, would you? It’s getting chilly.”

Shoulders relaxing, Julius did as he was told. Malcolm tossed the rope off the bed as Julius pulled the covers over them, then rolled onto his side and buried himself against Julius’s chest. “We can go sit by the fire instead,” Julius said.

“Nah, this is fine, can hardly move,” Malcolm murmured. He wrapped his arms around Julius’s waist. “You broke me.”

Julius did not tell him that he felt just the opposite, a study in repair and rebirth, made whole and stronger than before. Instead, he said, “I believe one might call that a feature, not a bug.”

He grinned briefly. “Feeling better?”

Feeling sheepish, actually, Julius thought. But better as well. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry for giving you a scare.”

“I’m sorry for giving you one,” Julius said.

Malcolm looked at him, startled and confused for a moment, before relaxing back into his arms. “Well, so long as we’re both feeling sorry at each other.”

He seemed intrigued by the feel of Julius’s skin under his hands, drawing lines and curves against Julius’s flank with his fingertips and kissing his chest in between nuzzling the sparse brush of hair there. Julius kissed the top of his head and asked, “Would you like anything? Something to drink?”

“Not yet. Just stay.”

Julius tugged the comforter a little further up and settled in.

*

Malcolm had stolen Julius’s linen slacks.

They were drawstrings and so could fit his slimmer frame, but were just over-long enough that he wore them pinrolled as he moved around the kitchen; the jumper he wore was even larger, having been pulled out of Julius’s dresser before he’d headed out of the room. Malcolm was by no means a small man; he was taller than most, and in his past life had allowed himself to be imposing when needed. But he swam in Julius’s clothes.

He’d left Julius to his nap, and had come out to make dinner. Feeling decadently lazy, Julius had pulled on flannel pyjama bottoms and a henley, made his way to the kitchen, and was currently watching Malcolm cook.

“I can hear you yearning,” Malcolm said, without so much as a glance in Julius’s direction. With no heat to his words, he asked, “You gonna keep standing there like some kind of pining creep, or are you coming in?”

He came in. After dinner and a shower, Julius wanted nothing more than to curl up under the covers and laze about, but he somehow loathed the thought of stripping his sheets and making his bed. Instead, they retired to Malcolm’s room, leaving the cleaning for later. Despite the fact that he’d barely done anything through the day, he felt exhausted, physically and mentally drained, and found himself drifting off as Malcolm chatted about Christmas at his family’s.

It was the cusp of early morning when he woke next. It was still dark, but there was the stillness and quiet of an approaching dawn, as though the pause between a breath in and a breath out. Julius took a moment to orient himself in a barely-unfamiliar room, and saw Malcolm’s slim silhouette as he sat upright on the edge of the bed. Tense, on edge, his back to Julius, the weak light of the pre-dawn sky outlining his form. “Malcolm?” he whispered sleepily.

“Just needed a stretch,” Malcolm said.

A lie, then, and an obvious one at that. With a sigh, Julius reached over to him, slid his hand over his hip and kissed the small of his back. “Darling, whatever thoughts you’re having, wherever they’re taking you,” he murmured, “let them finish, leave them there, then come back to me.”

At first, there was no response; Julius kept his hand where it was, rubbing a spot of bare skin with his thumb. When Malcolm slid back down beside him, he was prepared, and took him into his arms. In his night darkened eyes he saw the fear of a shutting door, and the desperate call of an open road.

Finally, Malcolm looked him in the eyes and quietly said, “Was thinking about how much my balls are gonna itch the next couple weeks.”

Julius could not bring himself to mirror the hint of a smile on Malcolm's face; instead, he said, “This isn't a mistake.”

“I know,” Malcolm said softly. “Sometimes I’ll forget.”

He laced his fingers with Malcolm's, brought their hands up to his chest. “What else?”

Malcolm searched his eyes for something; Julius wanted to probe deeper, but with a sigh, Malcolm shut his eyes and said, “I'm tired, Jules.”

It was a dismissal of any further discussion--or, the blunt, open answer to Julius’s question. Difficult to tell in the dark, difficult to see the weariness under Malcolm's skin, soul deep and unmoved by sleep alone. There was no other response he could think of beyond folding his arms around Malcolm as if to say, rest here tonight, and rest here tomorrow, and rest here every day thereafter until you need no more.

He said nothing aloud, his words getting lost in the night. It was as he waited for Malcolm to drift back off to sleep that he realized he'd not given Malcolm his own gift yet. Just as Malcolm had remedied his lack of a gift for Julius with the watch, so too had Julius had something created that he hoped Malcolm would take kindly to. It would wait until morning. Or beyond that, he thought--no, just till the morning, he didn't want to wait any longer, his nerves would only get worse with time.

Morning came hazily and quietly, with a dense fog blanketing the land. Julius left Malcolm to sleep, easing out of bed slowly while keeping his eyes on him to make sure he didn't stir; he didn't wake, but neither did he look particularly peaceful. Sprawled half on his side, half on his stomach, bare skinned under the duvet with one arm curled around a pillow and the other tucked against him, he didn't even look particularly comfortable, but he slept on as Julius left the room.

When he returned, Malcolm had shifted onto his back but hadn't awoken. Julius slid back under the covers and wondered whether it was worth it to wake him up yet, but his decision was made for him when Malcolm rolled against him, buried his face in his armpit, took a deep breath and blinked awake. “Is it morning?” Malcolm asked sleepily, his voice rough.

“Tragically,” Julius murmured. He let himself feel Malcolm's warm breath through the cotton of his shirt for a moment longer before leaning up against the headboard. “I have something to show you.” He picked up the box he'd brought in moments ago and handed it to Malcolm.

Sitting up, Malcolm eyed him with slight wariness but took the box. “What is it?”

Trying valiantly to hide his nerves, he said, “Open it and see.”

Malcolm ripped off the wrapping paper, tossed it to the side, and opened the box. His expression unreadable, he said: “Huh.”

There was no retreat for Julius now, no chance to pretend this was a joke, or a thoughtless thing he'd picked up on a whim. So he chose to continue full steam ahead, and hoped for the best. “Which would you prefer,” he asked, “left hand or right?”

Malcolm frowned at the contents skeptically. “You got me a bracelet?”

“Not quite,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching up. “I know you don't like wearing rings, and I wanted something that was--well. Look. Left, or right.”

“Left, I guess. It looks nice.” He hesitated. “I'm not sure I understand why you bought me jewelry, though.”

The hesitation, Julius realized, was not wariness over the concept of wearing the cuff, but over the meaning of it. “It's less jewelry, more of a statement. Give me your wrist.”

“Okay,” he said. He handed over the box and held out his arm. “You're gonna have to explain that one.”

Julius pulled the hinged cuff out of the box, opened it and snapped it onto Malcolm's wrist. Slim enough to be barely noticed, but not so slim as to look delicate. Flat, brushed titanium scrollwork against a dark patina, and a small interlocking collar into which he placed the screw that had come with it. He pressed a hex key, formed into a pendant shaped like an actual key hanging from a slim leather cord, into the divot on the screw; as he screwed it shut, deep in concentration, he said, “Discreet, masculine, hidden by your shirt cuffs for the most part. Easy to remove in an emergency. But should you require a reminder of who you are, and to whom, it will be there for you.”

Malcolm was staring down at it, contemplative and clearly trying to process it. He touched it with his right hand when Julius was finished, glanced up as Julius slipped the cord onto his neck and under his shirt, and seemed to be searching for a response. A joke, perhaps, some crass or sarcastic comment to disarm the moment, his usual reaction to such things.

When he finally spoke, it was without meeting Julius's eyes, and it was with an anxiousness behind his voice that Julius was surprised to hear. “You'll be keeping that key forever, yeah?”

“I may not be able to promise you many things,” he said, “but I can promise you at least this.” He was suddenly intensely mindful of the weight of this thing, even more than he had been before--of course he'd understood what he was doing when he'd gotten the cuff made, but seeing Malcolm running his finger against the scrollwork so tenderly, seeing the dark metal contrast against his pale skin, feeling the coolness of the metal key against his chest, these were not things he could have fully envisioned on his own.

Malcolm slid back down next to him, resting his head on Julius's chest for a moment, before pressing his ear against him to, presumably, hear his heart. It was a quiet acceptance of the strange proposal; cocooned in the sheets, ensconced in brick and fog away from the rest of the world, there was no need for either of them to say anything else as they understood each other perfectly and had nobody else to explain themselves to. In that moment, Julius knew the fullness of peace.

Then Malcolm grunted, reached under the sheets, turned his head just enough so he could glare up at Julius, and scratched himself with purpose and pointed indignity.


	12. Epilogue: Four Months On

If the stars in the sky were a thousand years dead, Julius could not tell. He leaned out of the open window into the bracing early April air, looked up for a moment, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Behind him, Malcolm was still sleeping through the final hour before dawn, the silhouette of his form curving and shifting with the steady rhythm of his breathing. Through the clean cold night, Julius could imagine the scent and taste of the sea where sweat-damp hair had curled against the pale nape of Malcolm's neck; he could imagine it on the plateaus of his shoulder blades and in the glistening canyon between them, down the peaks of his spine and into the valley of his lower back. If the morrow never came, he would at least have the night; still, he opened his eyes and willed another day for them, selfish and greedy though it might have been.

It was the same ritual he had engaged in on many nights before, more than he cared to remember, or at least more than he'd admit to. The sun had yet to refuse to rise for them, same as the rest of their stars that had refused to blink out and disappear on them, and there was no reason for Julius to make his prayers except for superstition and habit. Today, however, was going to be a long day of Easter-adjacent celebration, a day that Julius anticipated with both great delight and great anxiety, and the ritual was performed with a greater sense of urgency than it had been in months.

He let Malcolm sleep, and quietly walked down to his office; he had just one more thing to finish before they began preparing for their guests, one more change to the draft he was about to send to his editor. It was written in full in his head, and it barely took a half hour to type. By the time he was finished, the light of dawn was beginning to creep over the horizon, and the sound of the printer punctuated the start of a new day.

Malcolm didn't take long to shuffle into the room, wearing pinrolled linen trousers Julius had stopped claiming as his own some time ago, and a faded t-shirt that he didn't quite recognize. It had to be from his own closet, as so many of his clothes had migrated into Malcolm's possession and this shirt hung loosely on his frame, but he had no recollection of buying it.

“It's too early,” Malcolm said as he flopped into a chair near Julius’s desk. “Why are we up?”

“I'm just finishing up the first chapter,” Julius said as he retrieved the print job, “and I wanted to give it the proper red pen assault before sending it off. Though, now that you're here--well, you've always been my better in this arena, would you care to take a look?”

With a consenting shrug, Malcolm reached for the glasses he kept on Julius's desk and took the sheaf of paper from him. “I'm your better in many things, glad you're taking the steps towards admitting…”

Julius watched tentatively as Malcolm frowned at the page. “What do you think of the changes?”

Malcolm peered at him over his glasses, confused. “You're leading off with me?”

“Some time ago, you told me to start at the beginning.”

With a grimace--not an unkind one, Julius noted--Malcolm dropped the papers on the desk. “I'm not the story here-”

“You are a part of my story,” Julius said firmly, with a voice that brooked no argument, and a gaze that refused to leave the floor. “And you are a beginning I wish to share with the world. I wish to shout it from the rooftops.”

Sighing slowly, Malcolm picked the papers back up and began reading again, his eyes gray and sharp as they scanned Julius's words. “‘It is later in life than I'd expected, but I have found myself in love with a surprising suitor,’” he quoted. “‘His is a kinder soul than-’”

In the silence, Julius dared to look up. “His is a kinder soul than others might think, kind enough to wholly contrast against the cruelty my younger self had once faced, and far kinder than he might admit,” Julius continued softly, “and if I am lucky, as my soul belongs to him, his soul belongs to me.”

Malcolm stayed quiet for a moment longer; then, with the corners of his mouth twitching up into a rueful smile, he said, “Should've called yourself Jude instead of Jules.”

“Why?”

“Patron saint of lost causes.” He scratched a single red line onto the page, dropped both pen and paper onto the desk, and left.

Julius stared down at his lone edit as a smile began to grow. The conditional struck down, the ritual proven a success. He took the pages in hand unthinkingly, thumbing the line Malcolm had drawn for a long moment before remembering that he had to send this edit over sooner rather than later. He'd have no time later in the day to do so, and truth be told he actually did have to give it a proper once-over.

By the time he was finished, Malcolm was showered and in the kitchen. Once he had completed his own morning ablutions, he was greeted with a scratchy kiss, a plate of something hot and savoury on the table before him, and the words, “They're gonna be here a little early, caught an earlier train this morning.”

“That's fine,” he said. “I don't think Mrs. Trumbull will mind the cramped conditions of my car if I retrieve her on the way back.” He hoped not anyway.

“You can always show them around town,” Malcolm said, “drop them off somewhere and let them fend for themselves and find their way here while you go back to get her.”

“While I can commend the feral MacDonald bloodline and Jamie's likely instinctive abilities to track through the woods like a hound, I do think that might be a bit rude to his wife and children.”

Malcolm grinned and joined him at the table. “You forget Sam's driving up, not taking the train in,” he said. “She can pick up your Mrs. Trumbull on the way, it's only her girl and their son coming with.”

Through the fog of not having had that first cup of coffee yet, Julius recalled this very fact. “Of course. I presume you've already given her a call?”

“You presume correctly, everything's taken care of.”

“Do you truly not see yourself as a kind soul?” Julius asked.

Malcolm popped a bit of honey laden fresh bread in his mouth. “I see you as soppier than a boarding school jessie's secret cum sock.”

“Don't be crude, Malcolm,” he said primly as he cut into his--sausage? surely not. “We were taught to save ourselves for our future partners, and I took those lessons quite seriously.” He raised an eyebrow at Malcolm and added, “Besides, there were far less incriminating methods of finding relief than using a sock.”

“Oh? Such as?”

His gaze towards Malcolm quickly turned into a leer.

“You're a very filthy man, Julius Nicholson.”

He turned back to his breakfast, sighed and murmured, “You do bring out the worst in me.” There was silence, and Julius looked up again to see Malcolm regarding him thoughtfully.

“Do I really?” Malcolm asked. The small hint of a smile on his face didn't mask the unsteady look in his eyes.

Hours from now, the house would be flooded with a carnival of friends and children, and there would be no room for quiet introspection or contemplative pauses. Hours from now, Julius would be too busy keeping the adults occupied and happy, while Malcolm kept his kitchen in order, baking sweets with flour on his hands and clothes and one of the MacDonald children balanced on his hip. Julius could see it clear as day. He could see the look he'd want to see in Malcolm's eyes: open, calm, with clarity of purpose and a firm sense of his place in Julius's world.

He reached over to take Malcolm's hand, his thumb brushing against the cuff on his wrist, and held his gaze. “Don't be daft,” he said, and like the sun breaking through the early morning clouds, he saw the light he'd wished for.

He kissed Malcolm's hand, hoped to mirror that light in his own eyes, allowed himself the victory, and followed Malcolm into the rest of the day.


End file.
